Sergey Chemezov

Sergey Viktorovich Chemezov (Russian: Сергей Викторович Чемезов; born 20 August 1952) is the CEO of Rostec Corporation, a state-owned defense conglomorate. A former KGB agent and high-ranking general, Chemezov befriended Vladimir Putin when both were stationed in East Germany in the 1980s. Chemezov enriched himself when Putin became President of Russia. In 2007, Putin appointed him as CEO of Rostec.

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions, the patronymic is Viktorovich and the family name is Chemezov.
Sergey Chemezov
Сергей Чемезов
Chemezov in 2017
CEO of Rostec Corporation
Assumed office
3 December 2007
Personal details
Born
Sergey Viktorovich Chemezov

(1952-08-20) 20 August 1952
Cheremkovo, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Political partyUnited Russia
SpouseYekaterina Ignatova
Children4
Alma materMilitary Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia
Baykalsky State University of Economics and Law

The Pandora Papers leaks revealed that Chemezov and his family maintained a large network of offshore wealth, including a $600 million superyacht.[1][2][3]

Biography

Chemezov was born on 20 August 1952 in the city of Cheremkhovo in Irkutsk Oblast.[4]

Chemezov graduated with honours from Irkutsk Institute of National Economy (presently Baikal State University of Economics and Law)[5] in 1975 and then completed his postgraduate education at the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia. Chemezov has a doctorate in economics and is also a professor and full member of the Military Academy.[6]

At the Irkutsk Scientific and Research Institute of Rare and Nonferrous Metals, Chemezov provided economic assessment of deposits as an engineer, a research associate, and chief laboratory assistant for six months from 15 October 1975 to 28 April 1976 while he was waiting for his paperwork to process to enter the ranks of the KGB.[7]

East Germany and Putin

From 1980 to 1988 as KGB, he worked at "Luch" Research-Industrial Association which was the KGB surveillance operation gathering scientific and technical intelligence in the communist controlled German Democratic Republic (GDR).[4][7] From 1983 to 1988, Chemezov served as the head[8] of the Luch Association representative office in East Germany, where he met Vladimir Putin and Nikolay Tokarev. Tokarev, Chemezov and Putin worked for their KGB boss Lazar Matveev while in East Germany and both Chemezov and Putin lived in the same block of flats in Dresden.[9] There they became friends.[9]

From 1988 to 1996, Chemezov, as the KGB controller with the 3rd department of the 11th department of the 5th department of the KGB, was deputy CEO of the "Sovintersport" Foreign Trade Association under the leadership of Viktor Galaev (Russian: Виктор Галаев).[10][11][12][lower-alpha 1] Sovintersport, which held a monopoly on Soviet sports with the West, is a portmanteau of Soviet, International, Export, and Sport formed by Putin and Chemezov.[13][14][15]

Kremlin aide to Putin

From 1996 to 1999, he was chairman of the Department for Foreign Economic Relations within the Office for Presidential Affairs, serving under Putin.[16] Later he transitioned to the position of chairman of the Department for Foreign Economic Relations of the Presidential Administration of Russia.[16] During this time and although both Ukraine and Georgia objected, Chemezov was pivotal in securing for Russia, Russia's correct share from the former USSR's state property, state archives and state debts.[16]

Head of Promexport and Rosoboronexport

From September 1999 to November 2000, Chemezov served as CEO of Promexport. In August 2000, he became a member of the Presidential Committee on Military and Engineering Cooperation between Russia and Foreign Countries. From November 2000 to April 2004, Chemezov served as first deputy CEO of Rosoboronexport and then as its CEO from 2004 to 2007.[17] After Rosoboronexport obtained an 66% stake in VSMPO-Avisma in October 2006, Sergey Chemezov became chairman of VSMPO-AVISMA in November 2006.[18]

CEO of Rostec
Chemezov with Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on 20 February 2008
Chemezov with Sergey Surovikin, Vladimir Putin, Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov on 30 January 2018
Chemezov with President Vladimir Putin and Yury Borisov on 20 July 2021

On 26 November 2007, Putin appointed by decree Chemezov as CEO of Russian Technologies Corporation,[19][20] which was renamed Rostec in late 2012. He is credited with the consolidation of hundreds of state-owned enterprises that were made his responsibility as the fruit of government decree.[21] In the decade after his appearance, the total volume of exports doubled to just under $14 billion.[21]

At the 6th United Russia party convention held on 2 December 2006, Chemezov was elected to the party's Supreme Council. At the 7th party convention on 26 May 2012, Chemezov was reelected.

In 2011, Chemezov, Makarov, and Alexei Miller, chairman of Gazprom, were the supervisory board of Team Katyusha (Russian: Катюша), which was formed in 2008,[22] and, along with Novikombank (Russian: ЗАО АКБ «НОВИКОМБАНК») and Transneft (Russian: ОАО «АК «Транснефть»), their companies, Rostec, ITERA, and Gazprom, respectively, were the major sponsors of Katyusha.[23][24][lower-alpha 2][lower-alpha 3]

Sanctions

On 28 April 2014, he was barred by the Obama administration from entering the United States due to the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.[31]

Sanctioned by the UK government in 2014 in relation to Russo-Ukrainian War. [32]

On 12 September 2014 as part of a much wider expansion of its programme, Chemezov was sanctioned by the European Union over the Russia-Ukraine conflict.[33] The same day, Chemerov was mentioned in a communiqué of the US Treasury because the firm he directs was subjected to sanctions as part of a sweeping ban on the Russian defence sector.[34] The joint September 2014 sanctions packages had been agreed in principle at the 2014 NATO Wales summit.[35]

Through Serguei Adoniev's charitable contributions, Chemezov had become an influence in the Novaya Gazeta press since 2014.[36]

In February 2019, the Alexei Navalny linked Anti-Corruption Foundation discovered Chemezov's wife's Ekaterina Ignatova's apartment in the building of the Moskva Hotel with a market value of about 5 billion rubles.[37]

On 3 March 2022, the United States imposed visa restrictions and froze assets of Chemezov, his wife, sons, stepdaughter due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[38]

On 15 March 2022, Spain temporarily seized Chemezov's $140m yacht 'Valerie' in Barcelona because of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[39]

Offices
Chemezov with Vladimir Putin on 18 May 2022

Chemezov has served as a member of the Board of Directors for:

Chemezov has served as chairman of the Board of Directors for:

Academic activity, social activism and patronage
  • Head of the Department of Military and Engineering Cooperation for the Scientific, Research and Educational Center of the Military Academy
  • Head of the Department of Military and Engineering Cooperation and High-Tech at MGIMO
  • Chairman of the Union of Mechanical Engineers, a public organization (since April 2007)
  • President of the Russian Industrial Association of Employers in Mechanical Engineering (since April 2007)
  • Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Kalashikov Military and Sport Association, an interregional public organization (since April 2010)
  • Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Foundation for the Support and Development of Physical Culture and Sport in the Russian Federation (Sport Foundation) (since 2005)
  • Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Russian Cycling Federation (since 2007)
  • Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Plekhanov Russian University of Economics
  • Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Foundation

Family

Chemezov married his first wife Lyuba when he was 18 years old.[7]

Chemezov is married to Yekaterina Ignatova, who is a trained planning engineer. She is a co-founder and seventy percent stockholder of Kate LLC, a company that develops and manufactures automatic gearboxes. Ignatova is also the majority shareholder (along with Gor Nahapetyan, the managing director of Troika Dialog) of Étage, a chain of nineteen restaurants in Moscow. She has an apartment at 28 on Povarskaya Street (Russian: Поварская улица) in Moscow.[44]

Chemezov has four children.

He is a thirty percent shareholder of Medfarmtekhologia, a member of the board of directors of AvtoVAZEnergo,[45] and chairman of the board of directors of Interbusinessgroup, which holds via structural companies such commercial organizations as Independent Insurance Group LLC, Oborontsement JSC, and Oborontsement-energo LLC. Since 2003, Stanislav Chemezov has been the co-owner (together with Vladimir Artyakov's son, Dmitri) of the Meridian hotel facilities in Gelendzhik. Stanislav Chemezov is the only founder of Interbusinessgroup LLC (Russian: ООО «Интербизнесгрупп») which has the shares in several construction companies, Russian Industrial Nanotechnologies (Russian: «Русские промышленные нанотехнологии»), I.A.D. business industry (Russian: «И.А.Д. бизнеc индустрия») and shares in Natural and Organic Products LLC (Russian: ООО «Натуральные и органические продукты») which is one of several companies clustered around Andrey Dolzhich's (Russian: Андрей Должич) Virgin Islands firm Natural and Organic Products, Inc that sells soil improvers to Persian Gulf countries including the soil near Bahrain's Royal Palace which now have palm trees growing in soil improvers from Dolzhich's firm.[10][lower-alpha 4]

According to other information accessed in May 2009, Chemezov's second son was studying in a medical institute. His youngest son Sergey was in primary school and his daughter was a graduate student at MGIMO University.

Awards

Notes
  1. The deputy head of the international department at the Russian Federation's Goskomsport (Russian: Госкомспорт) and also in the 3rd department of the 11th department of the 5th department of the KGB was KGB Colonel Emirik Merkuryevich Shevelev (Russian: Эмирик Меркурьевич Шевелев).[11][12]
  2. Chemezov was involved with Igor Makarov in forming the main subsidiary of the ITERA Group, the Itera Oil and Gas Company, which was founded in 1992 with headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida and which Chemezov's first wife Yekaterina Iganatova held a 5% stake in ITERA.[13][14]
  3. Donald Trump is believed to have met with members of Sovintersport during his 1987 trip to Russia so that he could have Russian boxers fight at his Atlantic City casino.[13] According to Vladimir Abramov (Russian: Владимир Абрамов) who was the deputy director of Sovintersport, Chemezov was attached to Sovintersport as a KGB controller and was incharge of all aspects of Sovintersport.[25] After his 1987 trip to Russia, Trump established the Tour de Trump and hosted the first Soviet cycling team in history, Alfa Lum, which Chemezov in 1989 claimed to have created.[13][26][27][28][29] Chemezov is chairman of the board of Russian Cycling while Igor Makarov is President of Russian Cycling.[26][30]
  4. Serving in the KGB until 1991, Andrey Dolzhich (Russian: Андрей Должич) has many connections to Persian Gulf countries. In November 2005, Dolzhich's Natural and Organic Products, Inc and the Rosoboronexport subsidiary CJSC Tekhkom entered into a joint venture allowing its employees to be in Rosoboronexport offices globally.[10]

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