In a major shakeup, President Vladimir Putin has nominated former First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov to replace longtime Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the upper-house Federature Council announced Sunday night. Shoigu, a longtime Putin ally who has led Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, had withstood a series of failures in the war and a shocking mutiny by Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in the summer of 2023. Explaining Shoigu’s replacement with a non-military official, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “natural” for Putin to decide that a civilian official to head th…