Gryzlov Boris

Chairman of the Supreme Council of the United Russia Party (2002 - To date), Chairman of the State Duma of Russia (2003 - 2011)

GRYZLOV, Boris Vyacheslavovich (b. 1950) is a Russian politician and the plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation in the tripartite Contact Group to resolve the situation in eastern Ukraine. He grew up in Leningrad and graduated from the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute majoring in radio engineering in 1973. During his studies, he was an active member of the Komsomol committee, according to some reports he could be a freelance KGB officer. Until 1985, he was an engineer at the Electronpribor enterprise in Leningrad. In 1985, he became chairman of the trade union committee of Electronpribor and co-founded several companies. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union until its ban in August 1991.

Between 1996 and 1999, he headed the educational center at the Baltic State Technical University. In the 1990s, he met and collaborated with Vladimir Putin. In 1999, he became the president of the Interregional Fund for Business Cooperation. The same year, he headed the Unity political movement, got elected to the State Duma of Russia, and became the leader of the faction. In 2001, he was appointed Minister of the Interior of the Russian Federation and became a member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. Since 2002, he has been the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the United Russia Party. In 2003, he was again elected to the State Duma from the United Russia party and became the speaker of the State Duma.

In 2012, Gryzlov was appointed a member and chairman of the Supervisory Board of the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom by decree of the President of the Russian Federation. In 2015, he became the appointed plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation in the tripartite Contact Group to resolve the situation in eastern Ukraine. In 2016, he was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tactical Missile Arms Corporation. In 2017, he headed the board of trustees of the Expert Institute for Social Research.

Assistance in establishing a regime of personal dictatorship, organizing and conducting repressions, undermining the constitutional foundations of the Russian Federation, violating human and civil rights, illegal lobbyism and corruption, propaganda.

Journalists and researchers explain Gryzlov’s fast-paced career as belonging to Putin’s inner circle, where he got into thanks to Nikolai Patrushev, a former classmate and business partner. The analysis of numerous media reports, expert opinions, as well as Gryzlov’s career path confirms that his direct task was to promote the establishment of a personalist dictatorial regime in Russia.

So, Gryzlov, using his official position and bypassing the law, did propaganda work for the United Russia party and Vladimir Putin, who headed the party’s electoral list in 2007. In a complaint by members of the State Duma Vadim Solovyov and Andrei Chupanov, Gryzlov’s speeches were defined as tendentious and an outright agitation. In an interview published by Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Solovyov also noted a violation by the party leader of the deadlines set by the law for campaigning, since he began campaigning before November 3, before the start of its official launch. At the same time, according to the monitoring of the Center for Research on Political Culture of Russia, the principle of equal access of parties to the air of television channels was grossly violated: 46% of the time allocated for campaigning was given exclusively by the ruling party.

It was Boris Gryzlov who became the author of the idea of the complete subordination of the parliament to the executive branch. Back in 2003, becoming a speaker, Boris Gryzlov spoke about the role of the supreme legislative body of the Russian Federation: “The State Duma is not the place where political battles should unfold” (the phrase is also known as “parliament is not a place for discussions”). Under Gryzlov, the executive branch merged with the legislative one, whose direct goal is to ensure the implementation of any illegal political decisions made by the president or government and reduce the role of parliament to the direct subordination of the latter. The result of it became the Kremlin's total control over the Russian parliament as an independent branch of government.

Gryzlov is also the direct culprit of the reprisal of law enforcement agencies against civilians who participate in protests. Thus, according to the director of the All-Russian Movement For Human Rights Lev Ponomarev, on September 10, 2002, while holding the post of Minister of Internal Affairs, Gryzlov signed a secret order No. 870-L, which allowed policemen to use lethal weapons against protesters.

Various sources have repeatedly mentioned information on the illegal lobbying activities of Boris Gryzlov, using his official position for personal enrichment. According to the materials of the Kompromat.ru site, Gryzlov was the patron of representatives of the Khotin family from Belarus, who were the owners of the Ugra bank, leading development companies and oil assets. In 2008, Boris Gryzlov refused to remove parliamentary immunity from Valery Draganov after the indictment of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in the case of embezzlement of public funds, negligence, and abuse of power. Media called Mr. Draganov the “closest associate” of Gryzlov. The media also suggested that Gryzlov is the real founder of the St. Petersburg Institute for the Improvement of Executive Workers, which is also a violation of the law since members of the Government cannot conduct commercial activities according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation.