Abramov Ivan Nikolaevich

Russian statesman and political figure. Senator of the Russian Federation, representative in the Federation Council from the executive body of state power of the Amur Region since September 27, 2018, deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Economic Policy, member of the Council for the Development of the Far East and the Baikal Region under the Federation Council. Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the VI and VII convocations.

Born in 1978 in Blagoveshchensk. Graduated from Blagoveshchensk gymnasium No. 1 named after. Nadezhda Krupskaya. In 2000 he graduated from the Far Eastern State Agrarian University with a degree in engineering. After graduating from university, he began to engage in entrepreneurship, heading Synergy LLC.
He began his political career in 2004, joining the LDPR party and heading its Blagoveshchensk branch. The following year he was elected Coordinator of the Amur regional branch. In the same year he became an assistant to a State Duma deputy.

In addition, in 2005 he participated in regional elections in the Amur region.

However, this experience was unsuccessful. Abramov repeated his attempt to be elected in 2007, this time to the State Duma, but was again unsuccessful. Only the third time, in 2008, was Abramov able to get into the elections to the Legislative Assembly of the Amur Region due to the fact that he was in first place on the LDPR electoral list. In the Legislative Assembly, he headed the Committee on Economics, Interregional, Foreign Economic Relations and Property of the Region, and also became the head of the LDPR parliamentary faction.

In 2011, he was elected to the State Duma, joining the Committee on Regional Policy and Problems of the North and Far East.

In 2012, he was elected to the post of governor of the Amur region, taking third place in the elections, receiving 19 thousand votes. In 2014, he was elected to the post of mayor of Blagoveshchensk, and also received third place in these elections. The following year, Abramov again tried to lead the Amur region, ultimately receiving second place in the elections. In 2016, he was re-elected to the State Duma under the so-called a “negotiated” electoral district, that is, a district where United Russia did not nominate its candidate.

In 2018, he was appointed senator to the Federation Council from the Amur Region. In the upper house of parliament he became deputy chairman of the economic policy committee.

In 2017, he became a member of the Supreme Council of the LDPR. In 2020, he was again elected to the Supreme Council of the LDPR in connection with the re-election of the governing body for a new term of office.

- Violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. So Abramov in 2022, together with other Senators of the Federation Council, voted for recognition of the independence of the puppet republics of the DPR and LPR. The request of these quasi-state entities for military assistance became the reason for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

In the summer of 2022, he voted for the annexation of the Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine.

For these actions, he was included in the sanctions lists of the EU, USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine, and Switzerland.

- Adoption of anti-democratic laws. So, since 2011, while serving as a deputy of the State Duma, and since 2018 as a senator of the Federation Council, Abramov voted for the following bills restricting human rights and freedoms:

- Adoption of the so-called “Yarovaya package” in 2016, that is, a number of legislative acts tightening responsibility for political crimes, obliging telephone operators to store personal correspondence and conversations of citizens, giving the Federal Security Service the right to receive encryption keys for instant messengers. In addition, these bills introduced liability for the so-called “rehabilitation of Nazism,” which in fact made it possible to prosecute people for “disseminating deliberately false information about the activities of the USSR in the Second World War,” which meant, for example, condemnation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, the occupation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In the future, a huge number of people will be subject to criminal prosecution on the basis of the adopted “Yarovaya Package”.

- Adoption of the law on “Foreign Agents”, according to which onerous restrictions were imposed on citizens and organizations only because of the fact of receiving funds from other states, in a later edition also for some kind of “foreign influence”. In reality, this article was used for repression against dissidents in cases where it was not possible to initiate a criminal case.

- Introducing criminal liability for “public calls for violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation,” which was used for repression against those who did not agree with the annexation of Crimea.

- Introduction of criminal and administrative liability for participation in the activities of “undesirable organizations.” The recognition of the organization as undesirable, on the basis of this law, occurred without a court decision. For carrying out the activities of this organization, punishment is provided in the form of imprisonment for a term of up to 6 years. In particular, the Free Russia Forum and Open Russia were recognized as such organizations.

- Law on educational activities, prohibiting the free conduct of educational events.

- Introduction to the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses of articles on “discrediting the RF Armed Forces” and “fakes about the Russian army.” Later, in 2024, he voted for tightening these articles of the Criminal Code. In accordance with the new provisions of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for “Fakes about the Russian Army” and a number of other political crimes, in addition to the punishment itself, confiscation of property was also provided.

- Toughening of the article on high treason, providing for a maximum penalty of imprisonment up to life and equating “switching to the side of the enemy” with high treason, that is, persons who want to resist Putin’s aggression in Ukraine.

- Russia’s withdrawal from the Council of Europe and the denunciation of related treaties, which denied Russian citizens access to the European Court of Human Rights.

- Introducing criminal liability for calls for the execution of decisions of international organizations, primarily for calls to implement the decision of the International Criminal Court to arrest Putin.

Voting for anti-democratic laws was also one of the reasons for the introduction of personal sanctions.

- Promoting the usurpation of power. So Abramov, while serving as a senator of the Federation Council, voted for amendments to the Constitution that expanded the powers of President Putin and allowed him to hold the post of president for at least two more consecutive terms.

- Imitation of opposition activities. So Abramov, since 2004, has been a member of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. This party positions itself as an opposition party, but de facto supports the ruling course of Vladimir Putin, and in some aspects, in particular in foreign policy, it manifests itself even more aggressively than United Russia.

Abramov is not only a member of the LDPR, but has also held leadership positions there since 2004, heading the Amur regional branch, and since 2017, being a member of the Supreme Council of the Party.