Overview
- The Kremlin confirmed on Friday that Sergej Iwanow, 73, has died after an earlier announcement from the VTB United League, and President Vladimir Putin sent condolences to the family.
- No official cause of death has been released and reporting notes that Iwanow had reportedly resigned from a presidential envoy role in February amid rumours of serious illness.
- Iwanow rose from KGB service in St. Petersburg to serve as defence minister from 2001 to 2007, deputy prime minister, head of the presidential administration until 2016, and a long-serving member of the Security Council.
- He publicly backed the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, positions that led the European Union, the United States and other states to place sanctions on him.
- Iwanow is survived by a wife and an adult son and his death removes a familiar channel between the Kremlin and foreign officials, which could shift informal lines of influence within Russia’s security elite.