Vladimir Litvinenko

Vladimir Stefanovich Litvinenko (Russian: Влади́мир Стефа́нович Литвине́нко, born 14 August 1955) is a Russian academic, businessman and Vladimir Putin's campaign manager.[2] He is also rector of Saint Petersburg Mining University in St. Petersburg.[2]

For the Russian sledge hockey player, see Vladimir Litvinenko (sledge hockey).
Vladimir Litvinenko
Born (1955-08-14) 14 August 1955
Novoleninsky, Timashyovsky District, Krasnodar Krai,[1] Soviet Union
NationalityRussian
EducationLeningrad Mining Institute
OccupationRector
ChildrenOlga Litvinenko

Career

Litvinenko has been the rector of Saint Petersburg Mining University since the 1990s.

He oversaw Vladimir Putin's dissertation work in 1996,[3] which is alleged to include significant amounts of plagiarism and is speculated perhaps to have not even been written by Putin. Litvinenko has been criticised for either not spotting the alleged plagiarism or blatantly ignoring it.[4] According to his daughter Olga, Vladimir Litvinenko himself wrote the dissertation.[5]

Litvinenko was Putin's political campaign manager in 2000 and 2004.

On June 11, 2014, he was given an honorary doctorate by the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology, Saxony, Germany.[6]

In 2022, he signed the Address of the Russian Union of Rectors, which called to support Putin in his invasion of Ukraine.[7]

Business career

Litvinenko owns nearly 15% of PhosAgro, a phosphate mining company[2] in the Arctic.[8] The mine had been at one time partly owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky.[8] He claims that he was paid in shares for some consulting that he did in 2004 and that this "did not contradict any laws".[8]

Phosagro was floated on the London Stock Exchange in July 2011 and Litvinenko was listed among its new owners, as chairman.[8] When Litvinenko owned 5%, the stock was worth about $260 million.[2] In April 2014, he acquired a further 4.9% from Andrey Guryev, who controls the company, for $269 million.[9]

Personal life

Litvinenko is married to Tatyana Petrovna Klovanich. Litvinenko has a daughter, Olga, born in 1983,[5] who used to be a member of the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg.[10] In May 2010 Vladimir and his wife Tatyana were looking after Olga's daughter Ester-Maria Litvinenko (born in 2009), and refused to give her back to Olga.[10] Olga has described this as a kidnapping and has instigated legal proceedings to get her daughter back. Olga describes her father as "the richest rector in Russia" and an "oligarch" ("самый богатый ректор России, олигарх"[5]). When Olga fled the country in summer 2011, Vladimir reported to the police that Olga and her other son, Michael Stefan, had been kidnapped and his daughter's assets were frozen.[10] According to Olga, all lawyers defending her were arrested and sentenced.[11]

References
  1. Stitzberg, Valery (November 30, 2002). "Без крепкой экономики нет сильных Вооруженных сил". Krasnaya Zvezda (in Russian). Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  2. "The fabulous riches of Putin's inner circle". The Bureau Investigates. Retrieved June 7, 2012.
  3. Kramer, Andrew E.; Herszenhorn, David M. (2012-03-01). "Midas Touch in St. Petersburg: Friends of Putin Glow Brightly". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-03-04.
  4. "It All Boils Down to Plagiarism". Cdi.org. 2006-03-31. Archived from the original on 2009-08-06. Retrieved 2010-03-02. Clifford Gaddy: "Mr. Litvinenko -- who was directly involved in the dissertation, allegedly helped [Putin] choose the topic and was more or less the advisor for the dissertation -- is himself a member of the higher accreditation commission, which is the government-appointed body to be the watchdog over standards about degree-granting, dissertations and quality control for higher education in Russia. So it’s extra scandalous that he would be involved in this case of, at minimum, shoddiness and plagiarism, possibly something worse, which would be the literal purchase, either by money or political influence, of a dissertation by someone who didn’t actually do the work. That second point is not clear. I don’t have proof about that. All I have is proof about the plagiarism."
  5. "Ольга Литвиненко" (in Russian). Ester-Maria.com. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  6. "Rector of the St. Petersburg Mining Institute to receive an honorary doctorate". tu-freiberg.de. 2014-06-11. Retrieved 2015-03-15.
  7. Original text of the Address of the Russian Union of Rectors
    English translation of the Address
    Naujokaitytė, Goda (2022-03-10). "Russian rectors' support for Putin prompts UK universities to cut links". Science. Business.
    Lem, Pola (2022-03-07). "Russian rectors' union echoes Kremlin propaganda on Ukraine". The World University Rankings.
    O’Malley, Brendan (2022-03-06). "Russian Union of Rectors backs Putin's action in Ukraine". University World News.
  8. Kramer, Andrew E.; Herszenhornmarch, David M. (March 1, 2012). "Midas Touch in St. Petersburg: Friends of Putin Glow Brightly". The New York Times. p. 3. Retrieved June 7, 2012.
  9. Fedorinova, Yuliya (28 April 2014). "Putin Campaigner Buys $269 Million Phosagro Stake From Guryevs". Bloomberg. Retrieved 25 May 2015.
  10. "Дочь Владимира Литвиненко: У моего отца "синдром Ивана Грозного"" (in Russian). Rosbalt.ru. April 24, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  11. Litvinenko: Putin wants to show Europe that Russia's law applies everywhere, telewizjarepublika.pl, November 5th 2014
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