Chief Justice of the Russian Federation

The chief justice of the Russian Federation, officially the president of the Supreme Court (Russian: Председатель Верховного суда Российской Федерации) is the chief judge of the Supreme Court of Russia and the highest-ranking officer of the Russian federal judiciary.^[1]

Chief Justice of the Russian Federation
Emblem of the Supreme Court
Incumbent Yuri Ivanenko Acting  since 22 July 2025
Supreme Court of Russia
Type	Chief justice
Member of	Judiciary of Russia
Seat	Moscow
Appointer	President
Term length	Six years, renewable
Constituting instrument	Constitution of Russia
Formation	1 January 1923; 102 years ago (1923-01-01)
First holder	Pyotr Stuchka
Website	SupCourt.Ru

The Constitution grants plenary power to the president of Russia to nominate, and with the advice and consent of the Russian Federation Council, appoint a chief justice, who serves until they resign, retire, are impeached and convicted, or die.

The current chief justice is Yuri Ivanenko, who has been acting at the time of Irina Podnosova's death.

List

Chief justices of Soviet Russia

Chief Justice[2]			Took office	Left office
1		Pyotr Stuchka (1865–1932)	1 January 1923	25 January 1932
2		Ivan Bulat (1896–1938)	25 January 1932	17 September 1937
3		Yakov Dmitriyev (1892–1975)	22 September 1937	17 October 1937
4		Andrey Solodilov[3] (1900–1948)	27 October 1937	September 1938
5		Ignaty Rozhnov	September 1938	February 1939
6		Anatoly Rubichev (1903–1973)	28 January 1939	4 May 1945
7		Alexander Nesterov (1905–?)	4 May 1945	16 June 1949
8		Stepan Bityukov (1905–1966)	August 1949	15 March 1957
9		Anatoly Rubichev (1903–1973)	15 March 1957	July 1962
10		Lev Smirnov (1911–1986)	July 1962	September 1972
11		Alexander Orlov [ru] (1923–1999)	September 1972	December 1984
12		Nikolay Malshakov [ru] (1924–1997)	6 December 1984	6 July 1987
13		Yevgeny Smolentsev [ru] (1923–2017)	7 July 1987	7 June 1989
14		Vyacheslav Lebedev (1943–2024)	26 July 1989	26 December 1991

Chief Justice of the Russian Federation

Denotes acting Chief Justices

Chief Justice[2]			Took office	Left office
1 (14)		Vyacheslav Lebedev[4] (1943–2024)	26 December 1991	23 February 2024
–		Pyotr Serkov (born 1955)	24 February 2024	17 April 2024
2 (15)		Irina Podnosova (1953–2025)	17 April 2024	22 July 2025
–		Yuri Ivanenko (born 1966)	22 July 2025

Lebedev was approved by the Federation Council on 2 July 1999, 21 February 2007, 18 July 2012, 21 May 2014 (after disestablishment of the High Court of Arbitration) and 25 September 2019.^[5]

See also

• Supreme Court of the Soviet Union
• President of the Constitutional Court of Russia