On 8 May 2012, The State Duma, the lower house of the bicameral Russian Parliament, voted in favor of the appointment of former President Dmitry Medvedev as the head of government.

[1] On 8 May 2013, Medvedev's first deputy Vladislav Surkov, was relieved of duty after Putin reprimanded the government for failing to carry out all his presidential decrees from the previous year.

He also urged large Russian companies, including gas giant Gazprom, oil titan Rosneft and aluminum producer Rusal, to create their universities.

In April 2013, in his first State Duma report speech about the work of the government in the past year, Medvedev began his report just minutes after a video was leaked showing Putin scolding senior government officials for their poor performance during a closed-door meeting that he chaired in the Republic of Kalmykia.

[10] Following the 2014 Crimean crisis, the Annexation of Crimea to Russia, and the sanctions that the U.S. announced, Medvedev assured that the Russian government had all the necessary reserves to observe its social obligations.

[12] On 14 November 2016, the Investigative Committee of Russia announced that Minister of Economic Development Aleksei Ulyukayev had been detained due to allegations that he received a $2 million bribe for an assessment that led to the Kremlin-controlled oil company Rosneft's acquisition of a 50.08% stake in Bashneft.