Vladislav Surkov
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Vladislav Yuryevich Surkov (Russian: Владислав Юрьевич Сурков) (b. September 21, 1964, Lipetsk region), is a Russian politician. Currently he is a Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential administration and a top aide to Vladimir Putin.
Vladislav Surkov is widely seen as the main ideologist of the Kremlin. Allegedly he contributed greatly to Vladimir Putin electoral victory in 2004 and was accused of media manipulation. He made a widely-discussed but secret speech "How Russia Should Fight International Conspiracies" to members of the Delovaya Rossiya (Business Russia) economic forum. Surkov graduated from Moscow International University with a master's degree in economics. During the 1990s he held key managerial positions in top Russian banks such as Menatep (1991-1996) and Alfa (1996-1997). After a brief career as a director for public relations on the Russian television ORT channel (1998-1999) he was appointed deputy head of the Russian presidential administration in 1999. In March 2004, Surkov was appointed an aide to the president, with the official title of Deputy Chief of Staff. He is seen as the "Grey Cardinal", a behind the scenes actor with much influence. He is also allegedly the main supporter of Ramzan Kadyrov in Putin's entourage.[1]
Surkov speaks English. He is married to Yulia Vishnevskaya, the sister of Anatoly Chubais's wife. Surkov and Vishnevskaya have one son.
In June 2005 it became public for the first time after his interview was published in the German Der Spiegel magazine (original article: [2] ; Russian translations: [3] [4] ; English translation: [5]) that his father was an ethnic Chechen and he spent the first five years of his life in Chechnya in Duba-yurt and Grozny. Follow-up articles published in Russian newspapers ( [6] ) said that his father's name was Andarbek Dudayev (though not closely related to Dzhokhar Dudayev). Surkov's birth name is Aslambek, he was born in Shali. After his parents got divorced, his mother moved to Lipetsk and changed his name to the Russified version - Vladislav Surkov. His official biography still lists Surkov as name and Solntsevo village of Lipetsk province as birthplace.
