Ivan Rybkin

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Ivan Petrovich Rybkin (b. January 5, 1946) is a Russian politician.

He was born in Semigorovka, Voronesh Oblast. In 1968, Rybkin graduated from Volgograd Agricultural Institute, and in 1991 from the Soviet Academy of Social Sciences. After a career on lower ranks of the Communist Party, Rybkin was elected as peoples' deputy to the congress of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in 1990. In 1993, Rybkin became a member of the Agrarian Party of Russia. That very year in December, he was elected deputy of the State Duma. In 1994, Rybkin was elected speaker of the State Duma. In January 1995, he became a member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. In July of that year, Rybkin became a leader of the Regions of Russia Bloc. In March 1998, Rybkin was appointed Deputy Prime Minister for Commonwealth of Independent States affairs.

In 2004, Rybkin was nominated for the Russian presidential elections. During the campaign, on February 2, 2004, in his article in the Kommersant and Novaya Gazeta newspapers he accused incumbent President Vladimir Putin of being an oligarch involved in shady business activities with Yury Kovalchuk, Mikhail Kovalchuk, Gennady Timchenko, KiNEx and the Russia Bank, which allegedly swallowed up a vast share of the nation's financial flows. Rybkin's charges were not covered by TV and remained unknown to a wider audience. [1], [2] In February 2004, he disappeared under mysterious circumstances, a day after he accused the Putin administration of complicity in the 1999 bomb attacks in Moscow that led to a war in the Russian breakaway republic of Chechnya. Five days later, Rybkin appeared in Kiev. He stated his absence had not been voluntary. He also said that he didn't know whether or not to continue his campaign; he initially decided to continue, but on March 5, 2004, he withdrew from the race, saying he did not want to be part of "this farce," as he called the elections.

Preceded by Ruslan Khasbulatov (Chairman of the Supreme Soviet)	Speaker of the Duma 1994-1996	Succeeded by Gennadiy Seleznyov
Preceded by Alexander Lebed	Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation 1996—1998	Succeeded by Andrei Kokoshin