Sergei Ivanov

Sergei Borisovich Ivanov (Сергей Борисович Иванов; born 31 January 1953) is a Russian senior official and politician who has been serving as the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on the Issues of Environmental Activities, Ecology and Transport since 12 August 2016.

He has the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation.

Ivanov was born on 31 January 1953 in Leningrad.

In the late 1970s, Ivanov began a career spanning two decades on the staff of the external intelligence service.

In 1975, he graduated from the English translation branch of the Department of Philology at Leningrad State University, where he majored in English and Swedish.

In 1976, he completed postgraduate studies in counterintelligence, graduating from Higher Courses of the KGB in Minsk.

Upon graduating in 1976, Ivanov was sent to serve for the Leningrad and Leningrad Oblast KGB Directorate, where he became a friend of Vladimir Putin, then a colleague of his.

In the 1980s, Ivanov served as Second Secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Helsinki, working directly under the KGB resident Felix Karasev.

After Finland, he was sent to Kenya as KGB resident.

In 1981, he studied at the Red Banner Institute of KGB.

In 2015, Ivanov stated that his career in the KGB had been ruined and destroyed because of Oleg Gordievsky's defection and exfiltration on 19 July 1985 from Moscow through the northwestern part of the Soviet Union near Leningrad and then through Finland to the United Kingdom.

Gordievsky's defection greatly embarrassed both the KGB and the Soviet Union.

As a result, the Leningrad directorate, which was responsible for surveillance of British subjects at the time, had numerous persons purged from its service by Viktor Babunov, the head of counterintelligence, including many people close to Vladimir Putin, who also served with the Leningrad KGB at the time.

Before joining the federal administration in Moscow, Ivanov, served from the late 1991s in Europe and in Africa (Kenya) as a specialist in law and foreign languages.

As an employee of the KGB in the Soviet-Union era, Ivanov became a friend of his colleague Vladimir Putin,

(The council was set up by Yeltsin's tutelage in 1991–1992).

Between 1992 and Ivanov's appointment in 1999, Yeltsin used the council as political expediency dictated but did not allow it to emerge as a relatively strong and autonomous institution.

According to Western analysts, Ivanov's predecessors in that post – including Putin – were either the second most powerful political figure in Russia or just another functionary lacking close access to the center of state power, depending on their relationship with Yeltsin.

who appointed him as his Deputy in 1998.

He belongs to the siloviki of Putin's inner circle.

In August 1998, Vladimir Putin became head of the FSB, and appointed Ivanov his deputy.

As deputy director of the Federal Security Service, Ivanov solidified his reputation in Moscow as a competent analyst in matters of domestic and external security.

On 15 November 1999, Boris Yeltsin appointed Ivanov as secretary of the Security Council of Russia, an advisory body charged with formulating presidential directives on national security.

In that position, Ivanov replaced Putin as Yeltsin's national security adviser upon Putin's promotion to the premiership.

As secretary, Ivanov was responsible for coordinating the daily work of the council, led by the president.

But Ivanov's role as secretary was initially unclear to media observers.

At the time of his appointment, the Security Council was a relatively new institution.

Ivanov was named by Vladimir Putin, who had succeeded Yeltsin as president on 31 December 1999, as Russia's Minister of Defense in March 2001.

That month, Ivanov stepped down as secretary of the Security Council, but remained a member.

Ivanov had resigned from military service around a year earlier, and was a civilian while serving as secretary of the Security Council.

Ivanov therefore became Russia's first civilian Defense minister.

Putin called the personnel changes in Russia's security structures coinciding with Ivanov's appointment as Defense minister "a step toward demilitarizing public life."

Putin also stressed Ivanov's responsibility for overseeing military reform as Defense minister.

Unsurprisingly to specialists on Russia, Ivanov became bogged down in the sheer difficulty of his duties as Defense Minister.

But, despite bureaucratic inertia and corruption in the military, Ivanov did preside over some changes in the form of a shift towards a more professional army.

Although Ivanov was not successful in abandoning the draft, he did downsize it.

Ivanov had held the posts of Minister of Defense of Russia from March 2001 to February 2007, of Deputy Prime Minister from November 2005 to February 2007, and of First Deputy Prime Minister from February 2007 to May 2008.

After the election of Dmitry Medvedev as President of Russia, Ivanov was reappointed a Deputy Prime Minister (in office: 2008–2011) in Vladimir Putin's second cabinet.

From December 2011 to August 2016, Ivanov worked as the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office.

Having served in the Soviet KGB and in its successor, the Federal Security Service, he holds the rank of colonel general.