Konstantin Zatulin

Konstantin Zatulin (2011)

Konstantin Fyodorovich Zatulin (Russian: Константин Фёдорович Затулин, born on 7 September 1958, in Batumi, Soviet Union) is a Russian politician, first deputy chairman of the committee of the State Duma for the CIS and relations with Russian nationals abroad.

Biography

Zatulin graduated from the History Department of Moscow State University in 1981, specializing in the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1987-1990 he worked in the Central Committee of the Komsomol. In the 1993 election Zatulin was elected deputy in the State Duma, where he assumed the position of the chairman of the Committee for the Commonwealth of Independent States and relations with Russian nationals abroad. In the next 1995 election Zatulin lost his mandate. Since the 1990s Zatulin has been considered by the press as a champion of hard-line imperialist policies towards the former constituent republics of the Soviet Union.^[1] Due to his comments on the status of Crimea during 1996-2007 he was persona non grata in Ukraine. Since the early 1990s Zatulin has been a close associate of Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov, and in 1998 became a co-founder of Luzhkov's Fatherland Block.^[1] The block eventually merged with the All Russia block into Fatherland – All Russia, which in 2001 united with the Unity Party into United Russia. Zatulin assumed an important position within the leadership of that party, and with the 2003 election became a member of the State Duma once again and became first deputy chairman of the Committee for the Commonwealth of Independent States and relations with Russian nationals abroad. In October 2006 Zatulin said about the unrecognized Georgian breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia: "Recognition of the so-called unrecognized states is not far off. Unrecognized republics have all attributes of state system and stable democratic system."^[2] In December 2007 Zatulin accused the Romanian Orthodox Church of "proselytism" against the Russian Orthodox Church in Moldova with the supposed aim of annexing these territories into Romania.^[3] He was reelected to the State Duma in the 2007 election. On 6 June 2006, Konstantin Zatulin and Vladimir Zhirinovsky were banned from entering Ukraine (were declared personae non gratae) based on the Ukrainian law concerning foreigners' status, "foreigners are prohibited to enter the country if they violated Ukrainian legislation during their previous stay."^[4][5] The Ukrainian government accused Zatulin of trying to invoke ethnic violence and work against territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state.^[4] In July–August 2008 he was considered persona non grata in Ukraine once again.^[6] In September 2008, shortly after the Georgian breakaway Republic of Abkhazia was recognized as independent by Russia, Abkhazian president Sergei Bagapsh awarded Zatulin honorary citizenship.

References