Sergei Eduardowitsch Prichodko

Sergei Prichodko (2013)

Sergei Eduardowitsch Prichodko ( Russian Сергей Эдуардович Приходько ; born January 12, 1957 in Moscow , † January 26, 2021 ) was a Russian politician and diplomat . He was considered one of the most important functionaries in Russian foreign policy and worked for all Russian presidents from Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev to Putin.

biography

From 1986 to 1987 Prichodko was Attaché and Third Secretary of the Department for Socialist Countries at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union. From 1992 to 1993 he was Second Secretary and later First Secretary of the Russian Embassy in Czechoslovakia . From 1993 to 1997 he was head of department and deputy director of a department of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Since April 9, 1997, he was an adviser to the President.

From September 14, 1998, he was deputy head of the presidential administration, and from February 2, 1999, he was also head of the President's Foreign Policy Department. On June 17, 1999, Prichodko was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.

From March 2004 he was foreign policy advisor to the President of the Russian Federation , initially to Vladimir Putin, and from 2008 to his successor Dmitry Medvedev. From May 2012 he was first deputy head of the government apparatus of the Russian Federation, from May 2013 deputy government chairman and head of the apparatus of the Russian Federation.

Corruption allegations

In February 2018, a political scandal broke out in Russia after Alexei Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK) published the video Yachts, Oligarchs and Girls: Male Slayer Unmasked Corrupt Officials , in which Instagram posts by Belarusian prostitute Anastasia Vashukevich, also known under the pseudonym Nastja Rybka, the close relationship between the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and the member of the Russian government Sergei Prichodko was proven.

Navalny and his staff came across a video on Nastya Rybka's Instagram account showing Deripaska on a yacht with another man and identified him as Sergei Prichodko. With the help of the book by Nastja Rybka diary about the seduction of a billionaire, or a clone for the oligarch (Russian: Дневник по соблазнению Миллиардера, или или Клон для олигарха , who described the events on Instagram) , from tracking services for ship movements and Norwegian press reports, the FBK found out that the yacht is called Elden , belongs to Deripaska and that it had been sailing in Norwegian waters for three days in early August 2016. The FBK also found that there was only one small Norwegian airport on the ship route or near the yacht's anchorage, where only two aircraft landed on August 5. And both machines (M-UGIC and M-ALAY 5) belonged to Deripaska. One plane flew from Montenegro, where Deripaska owns a villa and business, to Norway and the other from Moscow.

Navalny accused Prichodko of corruption because he had been invited by a Russian oligarch to take a short vacation with prostitutes on his yacht. Navalny was unable to prove whether Prichodko actually flew with Deripaska's jet from Moscow to Norway. The presence of an official on an oligarch's yacht is a violation of the law that prohibits a public servant from accepting gifts or services and requires that he behave morally and not discredit the state agency he serves. And so the FBK addressed the Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation, Anti-Corruption Department, the government , the Ministry of Interior , FSB , the Committee of Inquiry (Russian Следственный комитет) and the public prosecutor's office with the request to investigate the matter and Prichodko from his To deliver post. The FBK's allegations against Prichodko were "illegal receipt of property, tourist and other types of services".

Another incriminating factor from the FBK's point of view was the various properties in Prichodko (a dacha in the “Sosny” cooperative and two apartments in central Moscow), which were valued at at least 780 million rubles. Like numerous other politicians, Prichodko attributed this immensely large fortune to the income of his wife, who, however, has no business of her own and no other sources of income. Navalny concluded that Prichodko had only been able to finance the property thanks to bribes from the oligarch Deripaska.

A few months before this affair, the US press reported on bribes that Deripaska allegedly paid to Paul Manafort , Donald Trump's campaign manager . In return, Manafort offered him private briefings on the progress of the election campaign. For the press, this episode was proof that Russia had interfered in the US elections. The US media wondered why a Russian oligarch should receive information about the US presidential campaign in private briefings. CNN reporter Matthew Chance tried unsuccessfully to get an opinion from Deripaska as to whether he was the secret link between the Kremlin and Trump's campaign manager. The reporters had no evidence that Deripaska was relaying information to the Kremlin. However, in Navalny's opinion, Deripaska and Prichodko's joint three-day yacht vacation in August 2016 provided evidence that the Russian oligarch was indeed the link between Manafort and Prichodko, who was responsible for the course of Russian foreign policy.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Умер бывший вице-премьер Сергей Приходько. In: Kommersant. January 26, 2021, accessed January 26, 2021 (Russian). 
2. ↑ Biography on the website of the President of Russia (Russian, English )
3. ↑ Alexei Navalny's YouTube channel: Яхты, олигархи, девочки: охотница на мужчин разоблачает взяточника ; zen.yandex.ru: Секс-охотница разоблачает взяточника , accessed April 21, 2020 (Russian).
4. ↑ YouTube channel of Georgi Alburov, an employee of Navalny: [1] , accessed on April 21, 2020 (Russian).
5. ↑ vedomosti.ru: Чем токсично расследование Навального , accessed on April 21, 2020 (Russian).
6. ^ The Atlantic: Did Manafort Use Trump to Curry Favor With a Putin Ally? , accessed on April 21, 2020 (English).
7. ↑ Sunny YouTube channel: Deripaska VS CNN Reporter , accessed April 21, 2020.