Vladislav Surkov

His parents, the ethnic Russian Zinaida Antonovna Surkova (born 1935) and the ethnic Chechen Yuriy ("Andarbek") Danil'bekovich Dudayev (1942–2014), were school teachers in Duba-yurt, Checheno-Ingush ASSR.

Following the separation of his parents, his mother moved to Lipetsk and he was baptized into Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

Vladislav Yuryevich Surkov (Владислав Юрьевич Сурков; born 21 September 1962 or 1964 ) is a Russian politician and businessman.

As per other statements, he was born in 1962 in Shali, Checheno-Ingush ASSR.

His birth name is sometimes reported to be Aslambek Dudayev.

According to Surkov's official biography and birth certificate, he was born 21 September 1964 in Solntsevo, Lipetsk Oblast, Russian SFSR.

At Alfa-Bank, he worked closely with Oleg Markovich Govorun (Олег Маркович Говорун; born 15 January 1969 Bratsk, USSR) who carried black cash directly to Putin.

In the late 1980s, when the government lifted the ban against private businesses, Surkov started out in business.

From 1982 to 1983, Surkov attended MISiS, but did not graduate from it.

From 1983 to 1985, Surkov served in a Soviet artillery regiment in Hungary, according to his official biography.

In 1987, he became head of the advertising department of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's businesses.

Surkov graduated from Moscow International University with a master's degree in economics in the late 1990s.

From 1991 to April 1996, he held key managerial positions in advertising and PR departments of Khodorkovsky's Bank Menatep.

From March 1996 to February 1997, he was at Rosprom, and since February 1997 with Mikhail Fridman's Alfa-Bank.

After a brief career as a director for public relations on the Russian television ORT channel from 1998 to 1999, Surkov was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the President of the Russian Federation in 1999.

He was First Deputy Chief of the Russian Presidential Administration from 1999 to 2011, during which time he was often viewed as the main ideologist of the Kremlin who proposed and implemented the concept of sovereign democracy in Russia.

BBC documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis credits Surkov's blend of theater and politics with keeping Putin, and Putin's chosen successors, in power since 2000.

Journalists in Russia and abroad have speculated that Surkov writes under the pseudonym Nathan Dubovitsky, although the Kremlin denies it.

According to the Dossier Center, Surkov has been a strong supporter of the far right also known as the ultraright since at least 2000.

During the beginning of his time in this role, Surkov's main appearances in public and in international media were as a public relations mouthpiece of the Kremlin.

In August 2000, he confirmed that Gazprom would buy Vladimir Gusinsky's Media-Most, which at the time owned the only independent, nationwide Russian television channel, NTV.

In September 2002, he stated on behalf of the Kremlin that they had decided not to return the statue of KGB founder Felix Dzerzhinsky that had been torn down during the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

After the 2003 Russian Duma elections, when the president's United Russia party got the most seats at 37.6%, Surkov delivered the Kremlin's enthusiastic response, saying "We are living in a new Russia now."

In September 2004, Surkov was elected president of the board of directors of the oil products transportation company Transnefteproduct, but was instructed by Russia's prime minister Mikhail Fradkov to give up the position in February 2006.

In March 2004, he was additionally appointed as aide to the president.

In an interview published in June 2005 in the German magazine Der Spiegel, Surkov stated that his father was ethnic Chechen and that he spent the first five years of his life in Chechnya, in Duba-yurt and Grozny.

Surkov has claimed to be a relative of Dzhokhar Dudayev, the first president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

However, former defence minister Sergei Ivanov stated in a 2006 TV interview that Surkov served in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU) during the same time period.

After his military training, Surkov was accepted to Moscow Institute of Culture for a five-year program in theater direction, but spent only three years there.

Since 2006, Surkov has advocated a political doctrine he has called sovereign democracy, to counter democracy promotion conducted by the US and European states.

Judged by some Western media as controversial, this view has not generally been shared by Russian media and the Russian political elite.

Surkov sees this concept as a national version of the common political language that will be used when Russia talks to the outside world.

As the most influential ideologist of "sovereign democracy", Surkov gave two programmatic speeches in 2006: "Sovereignty is a Political Synonym of Competitiveness" in February and "Our Russian Model of Democracy is Titled Sovereign Democracy" in June 2006.

On 8 February 2007, Moscow State University marked the 125th anniversary of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's birth with a high-level conference "Lessons of the New Deal for Modern Russia and the World" attended, among others, by Surkov and Gleb Pavlovsky.

From December 2011 until May 2013, Surkov served as the Russian Federation's Deputy Prime Minister.

After his resignation, Surkov returned to the Presidential Executive Office and became a personal adviser of Vladimir Putin on relationships with Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Ukraine.

He was removed from this duty by presidential order in February 2020.

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

Surkov is perceived by many to be a key figure with much power and influence in the administration of Vladimir Putin.

According to The Moscow Times, this perception is not dependent on the official title Surkov might hold at any one time in the Putin government.