Vladislav Surkov | |
|---|---|
Владислав Сурков | |
 Surkov in 2012 | |
| Assistant to thePresident of Russia | |
| In office 20 September 2013 – 18 February 2020 | |
| President | Vladimir Putin |
| Deputy Prime Minister of Russia – Head of the Government Executive Office | |
| In office 21 May 2012 – 8 May 2013 | |
| Prime Minister | Dmitry Medvedev |
| Preceded by | Vyacheslav Volodin |
| Succeeded by | Sergey Prikhodko |
| Deputy Prime Minister of Russia | |
| In office 27 December 2011 – 21 May 2012 | |
| Prime Minister | Vladimir Putin |
| First Deputy Chief of Staff of thePresidential Administration of Russia | |
| In office 15 May 2008 – 27 December 2011 | |
| President | Dmitry Medvedev |
| Deputy Chief of Staff of thePresidential Administration of Russia | |
| In office 3 August 1999 – 12 May 2008 | |
| President | Boris Yeltsin /Vladimir Putin |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1964-09-21)September 21, 1964 (age 61) Solntsevo,Lipetsk Oblast, Soviet Union |
| Party | United Russia |
| Spouse(s) | Yulia Vishnevskaya (m. 1987; div. 1996) Nataliya Dubovitskaya (m. 2004) |
| Children | 4 |
| Alma mater | International University in Moscow |
| Signature |  |
Vladislav Yuryevich Surkov (Russian:Владислав Юрьевич Сурков; born 21 September 1964) is a Russian politician and businessman.
He served as First Deputy Chief of Staff of thePresidential Administration of Russia from 1999 to 2011, where he played a central role in shaping domestic political strategy. During this period, he was widely credited with formulating and promoting the concept ofsovereign democracy.
From December 2011 to May 2013, Surkov wasDeputy Prime Minister of Russia, later returning to the Presidential Executive Office as a close aide toVladimir Putin. Between 2013 and 2020, he was responsible for overseeing Russian policy towardAbkhazia,South Ossetia, andUkraine. He was dismissed from this role in February 2020.
Surkov has been described as an influential political strategist and is sometimes referred to as a "grey cardinal" of Russian politics. He has also been linked to literary works published under the pseudonymNathan Dubovitsky.
According to Surkov's official biography and birth certificate, he was born on 21 September 1964 in Solntsevo,Lipetsk Oblast,Russian SFSR.[1][2][3] As per other statements, he was born in 1962 inShali,Checheno-Ingush ASSR.[4][5] His birth name is sometimes reported to beAslambek Dudayev.[6][7] His parents, the ethnicRussian Zinaida Antonovna Surkova (born 1935) and the ethnicChechen Yuriy ("Andarbek") Danil'bekovich Dudayev (1942–2014), were school teachers inDuba-yurt, Checheno-Ingush ASSR.[4][8]
Following the separation of his parents, his mother moved toLipetsk and he was baptized intoEastern Orthodox Christianity.[9] In an interview published in June 2005 in the German magazineDer Spiegel, Surkov stated that his father was ethnic Chechen and that he spent the first five years of his life in Chechnya,[10] in Duba-yurt andGrozny.[11][12] Surkov has claimed to be a relative ofDzhokhar Dudayev, the firstpresident of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.[13]
From 1982 to 1983, Surkov attendedMISiS, but did not graduate from it. From 1983 to 1985, Surkov served in a Soviet artillery regiment inHungary, according to his official biography.[14] However, formerdefence ministerSergei Ivanov stated in a 2006 TV interview that Surkov served in theMain Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU) during the same time period.[15]
After his military training, Surkov was accepted[when?] into theMoscow Institute of Culture for a five-year program in theater direction, but spent only three years there.[16] Surkov graduated fromMoscow International University with a master's degree in economics in the late 1990s.[16]
In the late 1980s, when the government lifted the ban against private businesses, Surkov started out in business. In 1987, he became head of the advertising department ofMikhail Khodorkovsky's businesses. From 1991 to April 1996, he held key managerial positions in advertising and PR departments of Khodorkovsky'sBank Menatep. From March 1996 to February 1997, he was at Rosprom, and since February 1997 withMikhail Fridman'sAlfa-Bank.[16][17] At Alfa-Bank, he worked closely with Oleg Markovich Govorun (Russian:Олег Маркович Говорун; born 15 January 1969Bratsk,USSR).[18][19]
In September 2004, Surkov was elected president of the board of directors of the oil products transportation companyTransnefteproduct, but was instructed by Russia's prime ministerMikhail Fradkov to give up the position in February 2006.[20]
After a brief career as a public relations director at the television channelORT from 1998 to 1999, Surkov was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of thePresidential Administration of Russia in 1999.[21] According to the Dossier Center, he has supported far-right groups since at least 2000.[22]
Early in his tenure, Surkov often appeared in public and international media as a spokesperson for the Kremlin. In August 2000, he confirmed thatGazprom would acquireVladimir Gusinsky'sMedia-Most, then the owner ofNTV, Russia's only nationwide independent television channel.[23] In September 2002, he announced that the Kremlin would not reinstate the statue ofKGB founderFelix Dzerzhinsky, which had been removed during thecollapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.[24] After the2003 State Duma election, whenUnited Russia won 37.6% of the vote, Surkov said: "We are living in a new Russia now."[25]
In March 2004, he was additionally appointed aide to the president.[26]
Since 2006, Surkov has promoted a political doctrine he calledsovereign democracy, intended as a response to democracy-promotion efforts by the United States and European states.[27] Western media often described the doctrine as controversial, while Russian media and much of the political elite generally endorsed it.[28] Surkov described the concept as a distinct Russian political language for use in relations with the outside world.[28]
As a leading advocate of sovereign democracy, Surkov gave two major speeches in 2006:Sovereignty is a Political Synonym of Competitiveness in February[29] andOur Russian Model of Democracy is Titled Sovereign Democracy in June.[30]
On 8 February 2007,Moscow State University marked the 125th anniversary of U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt's birth with a conference titled "Lessons of theNew Deal for Modern Russia and the World", attended by Surkov and political consultantGleb Pavlovsky. Surkov compared Roosevelt's policies to those of President Putin, describing the New Deal as a potential model for modern Russia. Pavlovsky suggested that Putin should follow Roosevelt's example and seek a third presidential term.[31][32]
According toThe Moscow Times, Surkov influenced the appointment ofRamzan Kadyrov as actingHead of the Chechen Republic on 15 February 2007.[33][34] Kadyrov later served multiple terms as head of Chechnya and has been widely accused of human rights abuses.[35]
In October 2009, Surkov warned that opening and modernizing Russia's political system—a reform agenda stressed by PresidentDmitry Medvedev—could lead to instability that "could rip Russia apart".[36]
In September 2011,Mikhail Prokhorov resigned from theRight Cause party after five months as its leader. He described the party as a puppet of the Kremlin and called Surkov the "main puppet master of the political process" (главным кукловодом политического процесса), according toKorrespondent, as reported byThe New York Times.[37][38] The Kremlin responded that Surkov would remain in his role.[39] At that time,Reuters described Surkov as the Kremlin's "shadowy chief political strategist", one of the most powerful men in the government and a close ally of then–Prime Minister Putin.[40]
On 28 December 2011, PresidentDmitry Medvedev reassigned Surkov to the post ofDeputy Prime Minister for Economic Modernisation, a move widely interpreted as a consequence of the disputed2011 parliamentary elections.[41] Reflecting on his career at the time, Surkov stated: "I was among those who helpedBoris Yeltsin to secure apeaceful transfer of power; among those who helped President Putin stabilize the political system; among those who helped President Medvedev liberalize it. All the teams were great."[42]
During this period, Surkov was involved in supporting pro-government youth movements, includingNashi. He met with movement leaders and participants several times and delivered lectures on the political situation.[43][44] Nashi has been described by journalistEdward Lucas as the Kremlin's equivalent of the Soviet-eraKomsomol.[45]
FollowingVladimir Putin's return to the presidency in 2012, commentators noted that Surkov became increasingly marginalized as Putin shifted toward more direct repression rather than the political management associated with Surkov.[46] As deputy prime minister, Surkov criticized theInvestigative Committee of Russia for pursuing cases against opposition leaders, arguing such matters should fall under the prosecutor general's office. The Committee announced that he had offered to resign on 7 May 2013, while Surkov himself said he submitted his resignation on 28 April 2013. Putin accepted his resignation on 8 May 2013.[47][46]
On 20 September 2013, Putin appointed Surkov as an aide in thePresidential Executive Office,[2] with responsibilities relating toAbkhazia,South Ossetia, andUkraine.[48][49] His work immediately centered on developments in Ukraine during the November 2013Euromaidan protests and the February 2014Revolution of Dignity.[50]
Surkov had earlier been described as the Kremlin's "Éminence grise" or "Grey Cardinal" for shaping the concept of "sovereign democracy" and overseeing state media propaganda.[51][52]
On 17 March 2014, one day after theCrimean referendum, Surkov was among the first eleven Russian officials sanctioned by the United States. The measures, enacted through theSpecially Designated Nationals List (SDN), froze any US assets and barred entry to the United States.[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][a] Surkov dismissed the sanctions, stating: "The only things that interest me in the US areTupac Shakur,Allen Ginsberg, andJackson Pollock. I don't need a visa to access their work."[63]
On 21 March 2014, theEuropean Union also added Surkov to itssanctions list, barring him from entry and freezing his EU-based assets.[64][65]
In February 2015, Ukraine's security service (SBU) accused Surkov of coordinating snipers responsible for killings during the January 2014 protests.[66][67][68] The Russian government rejected these claims as "absurd".[49]
Despite being under EU sanctions, Surkov joined Putin's delegation toMount Athos in Greece in May 2016.[69]
Academic research has highlighted Surkov's central role in efforts to promote a "Novorossiya" identity in eastern Ukraine, which largely failed to take root.[70]
In October 2016, the Ukrainian hacker group CyberHunta released over a gigabyte of emails and documents alleged to belong to Surkov.[71] According to the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, the 2,337 emails came from the official government account "prm_surkova".[72] The Kremlin dismissed the documents as forgeries.[73]
Media outlets reported that the correspondence described Russian efforts to destabilize Ukraine and coordination with opposition leaders in separatist-held areas of eastern Ukraine.[74] Among the leaked material was a document sent byDenis Pushilin, then chairman of the People's Council of the Donetsk People's Republic, listing casualties between 26 May and 6 June 2014.[72] Another file outlined a 22-page plan to support nationalist and separatist politicians and to push for early parliamentary elections in Ukraine, with the stated aim of undermining the government in Kiev.[75]
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On 11 February 2019, Surkov published an article inNezavisimaya Gazeta titled "The Long State of Putin", in which he outlined his concept of "Putinism".[76] The article was widely covered in Russian and international media.[77][78][79]
On 18 February 2020, Surkov was dismissed as presidential adviser.[80] A week later, he toldActualnye kommentarii that he had resigned on his own initiative, echoing reasons cited earlier by journalistsVladimir Solovyev andAlexei Venediktov.[81] He said that he had focused mainly on Donbas and Ukraine, but that the "context" had changed. In the same interview, he stated that "There is no Ukraine" and argued that "coercion to fraternal relations by force is the only method that has historically proven its effectiveness in the Ukrainian direction".[82][83][84]
In April 2022, during theRussian invasion of Ukraine, Surkov was reported to be underhouse arrest on allegations of embezzling funds intended for theDonbas separatist region.[85]
Surkov has been the subject of criticism from politicians, activists, and media throughout his career.
In 2007, a report by theOpen Source Center identified the Russian news siteura.ru as reportedly having links to him.[86]
Before the 2010 U.S.–Russia "Civil Society to Civil Society" summit, U.S. RepresentativeIleana Ros-Lehtinen (R–FL-27) led a petition urging theObama administration to suspend participation until Surkov was replaced as a Russian delegate. In an interview withRadio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, she described him as "one of the main propagators of limiting freedom of speech in Russia, intimidating Russian journalists and representatives of opposition political parties".[87] The summit nevertheless went ahead.[88]
That same year, inside Russia, human rights activistLyudmila Alexeyeva appealed to PresidentDmitry Medvedev to dismiss Surkov.[89] In November, opposition leadersBoris Nemtsov,Vladimir Milov, andVladimir Ryzhkov also demanded his resignation, citing policies they said threatened press freedom.[90]
After Surkov's dismissal as Deputy Prime Minister in May 2013,The Economist described him as the architect of "a system of make-believe", involving imitation political parties, stage-managed media, and orchestrated social movements.[91] Between 2013 and 2014, writerPeter Pomerantsev published a series of essays inThe Atlantic,[92]The New York Times,[93] and theLondon Review of Books[11][94][95] describing Surkov as "Putin's chief ideologue" with "unsurpassed influence over Russian politics". He argued that Surkov had reduced Russian politics to "postmodernist theatre". In an October 2013 lecture at theLegatum Institute, Pomerantsev andPavel Khodorkovsky went further, calling Russia a "postmodern dictatorship".[96]
In 2014,Igor Strelkov, a leader in thewar in Donbass, referred to Surkov as "notorious", claiming he focused "only on destruction... in South Ossetia and other regions where he engaged in looting rather than aid".[97]
In August 2009, the business newspaperVedomosti reported that Surkov was widely believed to be the author of the novelClose to Zero (Околоноля), published under the pseudonym Natan Dubovitsky inRussian Pioneer. The pseudonym closely resembles the surname of Surkov's wife, Natalya Dubovitskaya.[98] In a later edition of the book, Surkov contributed a preface under his own name in which he appeared to both distance himself from and praise the work, describing its author as "an unoriginal Hamlet-obsessed hack" while also calling it "the best book I have ever read".[11]
The novel, subtitled "gangsta fiction", satirizes public relations, corruption, and publishing culture in Russia. A stage adaptation directed byKirill Serebrennikov premiered in January 2011, which Surkov attended.[99] Critics offered divergent views: Peter Pomerantsev described it as "exactly the sort of book Surkov's youth groups burn on Red Square",[11] whileThe Economist argued that it "exposed the vices of the system [Surkov] himself had created".[100]
Additional works published under the name Natan Dubovitsky inRussian Pioneer includeThe Little Car and the Bicycle [gaga saga] (2012),Uncle Vanya [cover version] (2014),Without Sky (2014), andUltranormality (2017).[101][94]
Surkov's political style has drawn attention outside Russia. In 2011,Peter Pomerantsev described him in theLondon Review of Books as central to a system of "ceaseless shape-shifting" designed to confuse and weaken opposition.[11] In the 2016 BBC documentaryHyperNormalisation, filmmakerAdam Curtis argued that Surkov's blend of politics and theatre offered a model later mirrored in the rise ofDonald Trump.[102][103] Around the same time, journalist Ned Resnikoff likewise highlighted the "phantasmagoric" nature of Surkov's techniques.[104]
In 2019, Surkov himself declared that "Russia is playing with the West's minds", adding that "they don't know how to deal with their own changed consciousness".[105] The same year, Japanese scholar Sanshiro Hosaka analyzed leaked emails in a study of Surkov's "political technology" and its role in the war in Donbas.[106]
In a 2021 interview with theFinancial Times, journalist Henry Foy described Surkov as "a founding father ofPutinism", crediting him with stage-managing the 2014annexation of Crimea and Russia's involvement in eastern Ukraine. Surkov said he was "proud that I was part of the reconquest [of Ukraine]" and compared Putin withOctavian.[107] He also argued that "an overdose of freedom is lethal to a state".
Most people need their heads to be filled with thoughts. You are not going to feed people with some highly intellectual discourse... Generally most people consume very simple-meaning beliefs. This is normal. There is haute cuisine, and there is McDonald's. Everyone takes advantage of such people all over the world.
Surkov appeared as the inspiration for the fictional character Vadim Baranov in the 2022 French novelThe Wizard of the Kremlin byGiuliano da Empoli.[108][109]
Surkov has married twice. His first marriage, to Yulia Petrovna Vishnevskaya (Russian:Юлия Петровна Вишневская, née Lukoyanova, Лукоянова) in 1987, ended in divorce in 1996.[110] In his second marriage, Surkov married Natalya Dubovitskaya (Russian:Наталия Дубовицкая), his secretary when he was an executive at theMenatep bank, in a civil ceremony in 2004.[110][111]
Surkov has four children: Artyom (Russian:Артём; born 1987), the biological child of Yulia he adopted during his first marriage;[111] and Roman (Russian:Роман; born 2001), Maria (Russian:Мария; born 2003), and Timur (Russian:Тимур; born 2010), biological children of himself and Natalya.[111]
Surkov has composed songs[11] and written texts for the Russian rock-musician Vadim Samoylov, ex-member of the bandAgata Kristi (Russian:Агата Кристи). He speaks English and is fond of poets of theBeat Generation such asAllen Ginsberg.[40]
According to one information source, he served in the artillery of the Southern Group of Forces in Hungary. According to another, he served in the special forces of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). (По одной информации, службу он проходил в артиллерийской части Южной группы войск в Венгрии. По другой – в спецназе Главного разведывательного управления (ГРУ).)
By an order signed by Prime MinisterMikhail Fradkov, the Board of Directors of "Transnefteprodukt", Deputy of the Presidential Executive Office Vladislav Surkov, resigns. (По подписанному премьером Михаилом Фрадковым распоряжению, совет директоров ОАО "Транснефтепродукт" покинет возглавлявший его заместитель руководителя администрации президента РФ Владислав Сурков.)
Surkov played the decisive role in raising Kadyrov to his current post. For his part, Kadyrov refers to Surkov as his "sworn brother" and even has a portrait of Surkov hanging in his office inGrozny." and "...a person's formal job title in Russia never matches the actual authority they wield.
Принуждение силой к братским отношениям — единственный метод, исторически доказавший эффективность на украинском направлении. Не думаю, что будет изобретен какой-то другой.
это люди, которые нацелены только на разрушение...в Южной Осетии, в других регионах, везде, где он находился...разграблением вместо реальной помощи
Published novelClose to Zero was probably written by Vladislav Surkov. (Издан роман «Околоноля», написанный скорее всего Владиславом Сурковым.)
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