Sergey Kiriyenko

Sergey Vladilenovich Kiriyenko (né Izraitel; Серге́й Владиле́нович Кирие́нко; born 26 July 1962) is a Russian politician who has served as First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia since 5 October 2016.

Along with Nemtsov and Anatoly Chubais, Kiriyenko was known during the late 1990s as part of a group of "young reformers", who sought wide-reaching overhauls to the economic system.

This was in contrast with his immediate predecessor, the more moderate Viktor Chernomyrdin.

He previously served as the 30th Prime Minister of Russia from 23 March to 23 August 1998 under President Boris Yeltsin, and was head of the Rosatom nuclear energy company between 2005 and 2016.

Kiriyenko was the youngest Prime Minister of Russia, taking the position at age 35.

Ideologically a technocrat, he has played a leading role in the governance of Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Sergei Kiriyenko's father, Vladilen Israitel, made his name as a doctor of philosophy.

Sergei Kiriyenko, son of a Jewish father, was born in Sukhumi, the capital of the Abkhaz ASSR, and grew up in Sochi, in southern Russia.

He adopted the Ukrainian surname of his mother.

After graduation from high school, Kiriyenko enrolled in the shipbuilding faculty at the Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky) Water Transport Engineers Institute, where his divorced father taught.

Kiriyenko was appointed Prime Minister after the dismissal of Viktor Chernomyrdin's Second Cabinet.

The State Duma, dominated by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, twice refused to confirm his appointment but president Yeltsin nominated him a third time and Kiriyenko was confirmed.

Russians would popularly call the nomination of Kiriyenko "Kinder Surprise", a reference to both the unexpectedness of such an appointment and his youth at the time of his appointment.

His appointment was assisted by Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, who later became a leading critic of and activist against Vladimir Putin's government.

Kirienko's cabinet defaulted the GKO-OFZ government bond coupons which led to devaluation of the Russian ruble and 1998 Russian financial crisis.

Kiriyenko took responsibility for the crisis and resigned on 23 August.

Kiriyenko led the party in the 1999 legislative election.

The party finished fourth in the election, receiving 29 seats.

Kiriyenko headed the parliamentary group of the party.

Kiriyenko's premiership was noted in hindsight for the appointment of Vladimir Putin as Director of the Federal Security Service, eventually leading to his accession to the presidency in 2000.

Since 2000 Kiriyenko has held the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation.

In 2004, Novaya Gazeta printed seven articles by columnist Georgy Rozhnov, which accused Kiriyenko of embezzling US$4.8 billion of IMF funds in 1998 when he was Prime Minister of Russia.

The newspaper based the accusations on a letter allegedly written to Colin Powell and signed by US Congressmen Philip Crane, Mike Pence, Charlie Norwood, Dan Burton and Henry Bonilla and posted on the website of the American Defense Council.

The newspaper went on to claim that Kiriyenko had used some of the embezzled funds to purchase real estate in the United States.

The Moscow newspaper, The eXile, announced it had sent the letter as a prank, but later claimed that this had been a joke.

In response, Kiriyenko sued Novaya Gazeta and Rozhnov for libel, and in passing judgement in favour of Kiriyenko the court ordered Novaya Gazeta to retract all publications relating to the accusations.

The court noted "Novaya gazeta’s content on the missing IMF funds include a great deal of unproven information" and also went on to order the newspaper "to publish only officially proven information linking Mr Kiriyenko with embezzlement."

Together with Boris Nemtsov and Irina Hakamada and along with others, Kiriyenko formed the Union of Right Forces.

Kiriyenko was appointed to head Rosatom, the Federal Atomic Energy Agency, on 30 November 2005 by Mikhail Fradkov's Second Cabinet during the second term of President Vladimir Putin.

Kiriyenko said on 18 September 2006 while in Vienna, that the reactor in the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran should be operational by September 2007 and the plant itself will be active in November 2007.

He advocated President Vladimir Putin's idea of creating an international system of uranium enrichment centers.

He was also appointed by the same administration to chair the board of directors of the vertically integrated Atomenergoprom nuclear company in July 2007.

A uranium enrichment center could be operational in Russia in 2007.

Responding to a reporter's question, Kiriyenko said that the Bushehr power plant would not affect nuclear non-proliferation and that there was nothing preventing Iran-Russia energy cooperation.

The Government of Russia planned to deliver nuclear fuel to the plant in March 2007.

After a delay of some three years, Kiriyenko said 21 August 2010's arrival of nuclear fuel at Iran's Bushehr I marks "an event of crucial importance" that proves that "Russia always fulfills its international obligations."

Spent nuclear fuel from the plant will be sent back to Russia.

Kiriyenko was replaced as General Director of Rosatom on 5 October 2016 by Alexey Likhachev, former Deputy Minister for Economic Development.

In October 2016 Kiriyenko was appointed First Deputy Chief of Staff in Putin's administration.

It came to light in July 2018 that for his work in Rosatom Kiriyenko was awarded by a confidential decree a Hero of Russia honorary title.