Tkachev Alexander

Agriculture Minister of Russia (2015 - 2018), Governor of the Krasnodar Territory (2001 - 2015)

TKACHEV, Alexander Nikolayevich (b. 1960) graduated from the Krasnodar Polytechnic Institute with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1983. In 1986 - 1988, he was the first secretary of the Vyselkovsky district committee of the Komsomol of the Krasnodar Territory. Then, he joined the Communist Party, which he left in 1991. In 1990, he became the director of the Vyselkovsky feed mill, and later, after its privatization and enlargement, became General Director of the Agrocomplex CJSC. In 1994, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnodar Territory. In 1995, he ran for the State Duma of the Russian Federation. Having won in the Duma elections, he entered the Agrarian Group, allied with the Communist Party. He was a member of the Committee on Budget, Taxes, Banks, and Finance.

In December 2000, Tkachev was elected Governor of the Krasnodar Territory. In 2005, Tkachev joined the United Russia party, heading its Krasnodar Regional Branch. In November 2006, Tkachev became a member of the Bureau of the Supreme Council of United Russia. In January 2012, Tkachev, along with seven other heads of Russian regions, became a member of the Presidium of the State Council of the Russian Federation, and in March 2012, he was also appointed Putin’s special envoy for Abkhazia, which Russia recognized as an “independent state” following the war against Georgia in 2008.

Corruption, irresponsibility of his officials and outright banditry blossomed during his governorship (the story of the massacre in Kushchevskaya, where 12 people were killed, etc.). His administration supported the activities of militant formations such as “the Cossacks,” who regularly practiced pogroms, beatings, and anti-opposition denunciations throughout the country.

On April 22, 2015, Tkachev was appointed Minister of Agriculture. The main thing that he was remembered for in his new post, which he held for a little over three years, was a loyal appeal to Putin calling for the destruction of a “sanctioned” Western food directly on the Russian border. The practice of destroying food in a situation where a quarter of the country's population is undernourished, and local products do not meet European quality standards, did not worry Tkachev. It began even before he was appointed Minister, in 2014, regarding imported goods, and was part of the Kremlin’s policy of “food counter-sanctions against the West.” But if the majority of officials were somehow silent about this practice, and it was reported only in the local media, Tkachev truly supported that practice, saying that by 2020 the country was supposedly ready to “completely abandon foreign food.”

- Active participation in the establishment of Putin's dictatorial regime both in the Krasnodar Territory, where Tkachev worked for many years as a governor and at the national level, as one of the top officials of the ruling United Russia party.

- The incitement of ethnic hatred in the Krasnodar Territory, which, in particular, led to the emigration of an entire community of Meskhetian Turks to the United States (2004) and forced migration of many representatives of other ethnic groups to other regions of the Russian Federation.

- Corruption. He owns enormous land plots in the Krasnodar Territory. According to the tradition prevailing among senior officials of Putin's Russia, he registers most of his income on relatives. Back in 2009, it turned out that his wife “earned” twice as much as himself, and by the end of 2017, Tkachev declared 548.3 million rubles, and together with his wife, his income amounted to 586.5 million rubles, that is, 37.5 times higher than family income a year earlier. Tkachev’s niece Anastasia is the co-owner of large and highly profitable factories, and his wife Olga was in the top ten richest wives of Russian governors. After his eldest daughter, Tatyana Tkacheva, married in 2006 a businessman named Roman Batalov, his business “unexpectedly” went uphill: he became deputy chairman of the Committee on Property and Land Relations of the Krasnodar Regional Legislative Assembly, and also became Deputy General Director of Krasnodargaz.

- Complicity in the annexation of Crimea in February-March 2014 (the proof is the Russian medal “For the Accession of Crimea” awarded to Tkachev).

- Direct complicity (as the Minister of Agriculture) in the policy of the destruction of imported food products (and propaganda for this practice), which was one of the factors that led to increased food prices, deterioration in the food quality, and malnutrition a significant part of the Russian population.