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Why does Russia have multiple deputy prime ministers?

I mean, in other countries, they generally have one prime minister, some ministers, and under ministers, they have state ministers or deputy ministers.

I see that Russia also has ministers.

So, what is the explanation?

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    I don´t think there will be an objective ansver, the prime minister can decide how many deputies he has. The previous one had even more deputies.
    – convert
    May 30, 2022 at 21:56
  • Lots of country of multiple deputy prime ministers, and keep in mind that job titles like this, in translation, may not have exactly the same connotations as they do in the original language.
    – ohwilleke ♦
    May 31, 2022 at 18:27

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A leader of a modern country with tens of millions of citizens or more has to be a bit of a jack of all trades but expert of none (or perhaps an expert of a small number of specialties). Most modern countries' governments are explicitly set up so as to have people lead branches of the executive who are (a) experts in a certain topic and (b) have the same political leanings as does the leader of the country. In Russia, these people are called deputy prime ministers. In Great Britain, they're called cabinet ministers. In the US, they're called secretaries, directors, or some other title. (The US Secretary of Defense is not the kind of secretary that you might ask to fetch you a cup of coffee.)

The concept is the same; it's only the titles that differ. The leader of a modern large country cannot possibly do the entire job of keeping that country going, and the leader will inevitably want those top expert positions to be filled with people who know what they're doing and who agree (more or less) with the leader of the country. In Russia, these key positions are informally categorized as Deputy Prime Ministers.

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  • I'm not sure this really answers the question. Russia also has ministers, their MoD is the correspondent to the sec Def etc.) It might actually be a Russian or Soviet tradition to have a lot of deputy positions, across the board. Even their Duma (parliamentary) committee for defense had like four or five deputy chairmen.
    – Fizz
    Jun 1, 2022 at 3:31
  • "experts in a certain topic": in the UK (and presumably other parliamentary states), ministers in general are not required to have any expertise in their subjects, and mostly don't. It's the job of civil servants to provide that expertise.
    – Steve Melnikoff
    Jun 1, 2022 at 9:53
  • In the UK, most political heads of department have the title Secretary of State for <dept>, commonly referred to as <dept> Secretary. All of them are ministers and are in the cabinet, but the PM may also choose to invite other (non-SoS) ministers at his discretion.
    – Steve Melnikoff
    Jun 1, 2022 at 9:56

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