Sergei Prikhodko (politician)

For other people named Sergei Prikhodko, see Sergei Prikhodko (disambiguation).

In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Eduardovich and the family name is Prikhodko.

Sergei Eduardovich Prikhodko (Russian: Сергей Эдуардович Приходько; 12 January 1957 – 26 January 2021) was a Russian politician and diplomat. From May 2013 to May 2018, he was Deputy Prime Minister in Dmitry Medvedev's Cabinet.^[1] He was engaged in international cooperation of the Cabinet. He served as the First Deputy Head of the Russian Government Office from 2018 to 2021.^[2] He had the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation.^[3]

Sergei Prikhodko
Сергей Приходько
First Deputy Head of the Russian Government Office
In office 19 May 2018 – 26 January 2021
Personal details
Born	Sergei Eduardovich Prikhodko (1957-01-12)12 January 1957 Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Russia)
Died	26 January 2021(2021-01-26) (aged 64) Moscow, Russia
Alma mater	Moscow State Institute of International Relations
Profession	Diplomat

Life and career

Prikhodko was born in Moscow. He graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1980. After graduation, he was a diplomat at the Soviet Embassy in Czechoslovakia. In the years 1986-1987 - Attaché, Third Secretary of the Office of European socialist countries Soviet Foreign Ministry.

In 1992-1993 - Second Secretary, First Secretary of the Embassy of Russia in Czechoslovakia. In the period 1993-1997 - Head of Department, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. On 9 April 1997 - Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation. On 14 September 1998 - Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation.

Since 2 February 1999 - Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation - Head of the Russian President's foreign policy. On 26 March 2004 - Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation. On 21 May 2012 - First Deputy Head of the Government of the Russian Federation. On 9 May 2013 - Acting Head of the Government of the Russian Federation. From 22 May 2013 to 7 May 2018 he was Deputy Prime Minister of Russia in Dmitry Medvedev's Cabinet.

He last served as the First Deputy Head of the Russian Government Office.^[4]

Prikhodko died on 26 January 2021 at the age of 64 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.^[5][6]

Business interests

Since 2 August 2009 through the cooperative "Sosny" (Russian: ДНП «Сосны»), Prikhodko is a business partner of Sergey Neverov (Russian: Сергей Неверов), who was the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma and United Russia, Igor Rudensky (Russian: Игорь Руденский), who was a member of the Presidium of the General Council of United Russia, Vyacheslav Volodin, who was Chairman of the State Duma at the time, Konstantin Kosachev (Russian: Константин Косачев), who was the head of the Duma Committee on International Affairs at that time, Yu.V. Pervova (Russian: Ю.В. Первова) and Nikolay Ashlapov (Russian: Николай Аншлапов), who was later the Head of the Federal Agency for Special Construction. "Sosny" purchased land from the Nadezhda Ivanovna Makeeva associated Bolshoy Gorod LLC (Russian: ООО «Большой Город»). Makeeva's husband is the chairman of the board of NMC "Itera" Vladimir Pavlovich Makeev (Russian: НГК «Итера» Владимир Павлович Макеев) who is a close associate of the president of Itera Igor Makarov.^[7][8] Until 2011, this location was formerly associated with the St. Petersburg businessman Boris Vaninsky (Russian: Борис Ванинский) associated company Istra-Estate (Russian: «Истра-эстейт») and is near Velednikovo (Russian: Веледниково) in the Istrinsky District in the Moscow Oblast.^[9][10][a]

Allegations of corruption

In February 2018, Alexei Navalny published a video alleging that Prikhodko had been receiving various bribes from Russian oligarch and dollar billionaire Oleg Deripaska, including prostitutes services as well as real estate valued at at least 1.5 billion rubles (some 25 million dollars).^{[15][16][17][18]} Prikhodko himself denied the allegations, accusing Navalny of "mixing the facts" about his "friend" Deripaska, Donald Trump and Paul Manafort, while also voicing his wish to have a talk with Navalny as a "man with a man".^[19][20][21] A day after the video was published the Roskomnadzor added the video to the Federal List of Extremist Materials, thus making accessing the video illegal for all Russian citizens.^[22][23] In the video known as Fishgate (Russian: «Рыбка-гейт»), Navalny explains the characters and setting for Nastya Rybka's book Who Wants to Seduce a Billionaire (ISBN 978-5-699-93242-9): Ruslan Zolotov is Deripaska, Papa is Prikhodko, Vitya or Victor or V is Yevgeny Agarkov and the Rybka's book setting of Greenland is actually Norway.^[24][25][26] Rybka refers to Papa as Richelieu, or a Cardinal in the Kremlin who is the person actually responsible for Russia's foreign policy during the governments of Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and Dmitri Medvedev.^[24]

Notes

1. In early 1990s, the St. Petersburg businessman Boris Vaninsky (Russian: Борис Ванинский), who is a graduate of the law faculty of St. Petersburg University and is a long-time business partner and very close to the Viktor Chernomyrdin family, was the financial director of "Albi-jazz" (Russian: «Олби-джаз»), which was an importer of fruits closely associated with Sergei Adoniev (Russian: Сергей Адоньев), who founded Scartel and operates under the brand name Yota, Vladimir Kekhman (Russian: Владимир Кехман) and Oleg Boyko (Russian: Олег Бойко). From 1994-1995, while Vaninsky supported Oleg Boyko's interests, Vaninsky became acquainted with Viktor Zolotov who headed the security service of the mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak. In the early 2000s, while Vaninsky worked in the structures of Gazprom, he became close to Alisher Usmanov but remained close to Adoniev and, together, Adoniev and Vaninskuy supported and were supposed to build a commercial center near the St. Petersburg airport called the Pulkovo Estate project (Russian: проект «Пулково эстейт»). However, in 2014, the PIK group controls the Pulkovo Estate project. Also, Vaninsky worked as a vice president of Sibur for nine months in 2002 during which time he met Boris Kantemirov (Russian: Борис Кантемиров). Revealed in a 26 December 2018 interview with Dozhd, Vaninsky affirmed that he is an acquaintance of Viktor Zolotov and is the owner and beneficiary of the Moscow registered management company Optima-Finance, which, through Druzhba Narodov LLC, owns the Crimea registered Druzhba Narodov Meat Processing Plant and is the sole supplier to the Russian National Guard through the former General Sergei Mileiko (Russian: Сергей Милейко) who was the Deputy Director of the National Guard and was convicted of fraud, stripped of his rank, and sentenced to six years in prison for fraud in the procurement of uniforms. Previously, in August 2018, Alexei Navalny alleged that Druzhba Narodov charged inflated prices to the Russian National Guard which led Zolotov to reply that Navalny was incorrect and Zolotov challenged Navalny to a duel. In late December 2019, Zolotov and Vaninsky allegedly spent a holiday in the Seychelles.^{[9][11][12][13][14]}