Azarov Dmitry Igorevich

Governor of the Samara region since September 2018, party - United Russia.
Born in Samara (then Kuibyshev) in 1970. In 1992 he graduated from Samara State Technical University with a degree in systems engineer. In 1994 he graduated from the Buzuluk Financial and Economic College of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation (now the Buzuluk branch of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation).

He began his professional career at school, packing pasta, after which, during his student years, he worked as an asphalt worker. Then he became a software engineer, and also worked for some time in the territorial department of the tax service.

He took up a more or less senior post in 1995, becoming deputy director for economics of the Samara plant of boiler and auxiliary equipment and pipelines. In 1998, he moved to the Sintezkauchuk plant, also working there as deputy director for economics, where he worked until 2001. For a short time he worked at the Volgapromkhim enterprise. In 2001, he became the General Director of Srednevolzhskaya Gas Company LLC.

In 2003, he defended his PhD thesis at the Russian State University of Trade and Economics on the topic “Improving the organizational and economic mechanism for creating the profitability of a commercial organization.”

He began his political career in 2006, becoming the first deputy head of the Samara city district. In the Samara administration, he oversaw the activities of the departments of finance, economic development, urban management and ecology, industrial policy, entrepreneurship and communications. In 2009, he joined the personnel reserve of then President Medvedev.

In 2008, he was appointed Minister of Natural Resources, Forestry and Environmental Protection of the Samara Region. While in office, the minister, by his decree, introduced uniforms with shoulder straps for employees. However, since wearing a uniform was optional, this initiative was not put into practice.
In 2010, he was nominated by the governor of the Samara region to the position of head of the city. He won the election with 67 percent of the vote in the election.

In 2012 he became one of the authors of the so-called. “municipal filter”, that is, the obligation of potential candidates for elections of heads of subjects and localities to first collect consent for nomination from municipal deputies. Such a law allows the ruling party to cut off undesirables from elections.

In 2014 he became a senator of the Federation Council.

In 2017, he was appointed acting governor of the Samara region. In 2018 he became governor. Journalists associated Azarov's appointment with the patronage of Vladimir Avetisyan, the owner of Gazbank, who plays a large role in the Samara region. Despite this, already in 2018, Gazbank found itself bankrupt; according to one version, Azarov himself had a hand in this, trying to get rid of the influence of his patrons.

In 2020, he became a member of the Presidium of the State Council of the Russian Federation.

Winner of two state awards, one church award, an apartment with an area of 650 square meters and an income of 24 million rubles a year.

- Supporting Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, including by providing logistics. Thus, while holding the position of governor of the Samara region, Azarov repeatedly, at least 03/27/2023, 07/07/2023, 08/09/2023, visited the Special Military Operation zone in order to meet with military personnel of the Russian Armed Forces and provide them with moral and material support. Sending ammunition, drones and other things is the norm for Putin’s deputies and regional heads. However, Azarov is especially different, providing cars for participants in the aggression, and in fairly large quantities. So, on July 7, 2023, Azarov arrived with a convoy of 12 units of equipment, and in March 2023, he delivered 32 units of equipment to the special operation zone.

During his visits, Azarov publicly glorifies the participants in the aggression.
“I am convinced that assistance on such a permanent basis will bring Victory closer - one for all,” the governor assessed his activities.

“More and more people understand the threat we faced, what would have happened if we had not stood up to protect millions of Donbass residents, what would have happened to them and to our country in the future.” - the governor asserted during another trip. It is not known what would have happened if the Russian Federation “had not stood up to defend the residents of Donbass,” but it is known that as a result of the aggression, supported, among other things, by Azarov, at least tens of thousands of people on both sides died.

Azarov comes not only directly to the special operation zone, but also to the training sites for military personnel of the Russian Armed Forces before they are sent to the territory of hostilities. So, on October 30, 2023, Azarov visited the location of the “Cossack unit” that was preparing to be sent to the front. During the meeting, Azarov again glorified potential participants in the Special Military Operation, saying that they were supposedly defending the Motherland:

“Cossacks, thank you. Know that your native Samara land does not forget about you for a minute and is proud that you are always ready to come to the aid of your comrades and stand up for the defense of the Motherland.” – said Azarov.
In addition, the governor also handed over a combat vehicle to them.

Azarov was involved in the glorification of participants in the aggression not only at the front and military training sites, but also in the hospital where the wounded soldiers lay. So on February 13, 2023, while visiting a local hospital, Azarov told the doctors:

“The patients, our heroes, are in a good mood here. This is an important factor in restoring health. You are here on the front line in restoring their health, returning them to normal life. I am very grateful to you for this.”

For this activity, he is on the sanctions lists of Ukraine, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

- Adoption of anti-democratic laws. Thus, while serving as a senator of the Federation Council from 2014 to 2017, Azarov voted for the adoption of the following laws that infringed 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”.

- Membership in the anti-democratic party “United Russia”. So Azarov, at least since 2011, has been a member of United Russia. This party is responsible for many years of usurpation of power in the Russian Federation, the adoption of anti-democratic laws, corruption, and violation of the territorial integrity of neighboring states. Azarov is not only a member of United Russia, but also occupies the highest official position in it, being a member of the Bureau of the Supreme Council of the party, secretary of the Samara regional branch.

- Abuse of official position. Thus, according to media reports, Azarov used his official position to lobby the administration of the city of Samara for contracts with companies controlled by Vitaly Zaitsev, Azarov’s man. Journalists claim that the utility companies with which the mayor's office enters into contracts worth billions of rubles are actually controlled by Azarov. At the same time, Azarov’s companies improperly fulfill their obligations, which results, in particular, in numerous accidents on the roads of Samara.

Relatives and friends of Azarov, according to journalists, also control companies that supply gas to the territory of the Samara region. Agreements with these companies are concluded by the administrations of the city of Samara and the region.

Through the efforts of Azarov’s protege, Samara Mayor Elena Lapushkina, the city administration concluded a concession agreement with the SKS company, owned by the oligarch Vekselberg. In fact, Vekselberg's company became a monopolist in the market for providing water supply services in the city of Samara. These actions led to an increase in tariffs for utility services several times in the period from 2012 to 2021, and numerous accidents at infrastructure facilities. The concession agreement was supported by Azarov himself, who himself, while still in the position of mayor of Samara, entered into agreements with Vekselberg’s companies. From the point of view of the prosecutor's office, the concession agreement was concluded with the SKS company on an almost free basis, and the company regularly violated the terms of the agreement with the Samara administration.

On the part of the Samara mayor's office and the government of the Samara region, there were other transactions with private companies that were dubious from the point of view of legislation. The benefit for Azarov from these actions is probably the acquisition by his wife of an elite apartment in the center of Moscow, worth about 85 million rubles, which neither Azarov nor his wife could afford with their official income.

- Criminal negligence. Thus, Azarov is considered one of the officials who allowed forest fires in the Samara region in 2010, when the current governor was the region’s Minister of Natural Resources. Forest fires covered 8 thousand hectares of land. A local resident filed a complaint with the court demanding that Azarov, as well as the then governor of the Samara region and the mayor of Tolyatti, be brought to justice. However, the complaint was left unsatisfied by the court.