Sergei Stepashin

Yeltsin administration

Stepashin was a member of the Russian Congress of People's Deputies that was elected in 1990 and became the head of its defense and security committee. During the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, he resigned from his position when President Boris Yeltsin ordered the dissolution of the Congress, and was appointed deputy security minister. Stepashin accused the chairman of the Congress, Ruslan Khasbulatov, of provoking Yeltsin into taking action against the parliament by frequently blocking his agenda.^[4][5] In December 1993 Yeltsin ordered a reformation of the ministry of security that replaced the KGB, and Stepashin said in January 1994 that half of its employees will be let go.^[6]

Stepashin was appointed as the head of the Federal Counterintelligence Service, the FSK (the predecessor of the Federal Security Service, the FSB) on 3 March 1994. He said that the agency need be brought under closer legislative control, and he replaced a career KGB officer in the role, Nikolai Golushko. The appointment came after Yeltsin expressed frustration that attempts to reform the former KGB had been largely symbolic.^[7] On 25 March 1994 he said that an overhaul of the FSK's personnel had been completed, and that it had 75,000 members, less than half of the security ministry that it replaced.^[8] In November 1994 Stepashin encouraged the State Duma to pass a bill restoring powers to the FSB that had been taken away during democratic reforms in 1993, in order to better fight organized crime.^[9] He was also one of the hawks behind Yeltsin's decision to wage the war in Chechnya in December 1994.^[3]

Stepashin resigned as the director of the renamed FSB on 30 June 1995 along with several other officials, after earlier that month over 100 people were killed in a Chechen raid and hostage crisis in Budyonnovsk, Stavropol Krai.^[10] In November 1995 he was appointed to another position in the government. On 2 July 1997, he was appointed by Yeltsin as the Minister of Justice to replace Valentin Kovalyov.^[11] In March 1998, he was made the acting Minister of Internal Affairs to replace Anatoly Kulikov, and was approved in that office on 24 April 1998 by the State Duma. Stepashin was initially in Viktor Chernomyrdin's and Sergey Kiriyenko's cabinet,^[12] and remained in Yevgeny Primakov's cabinet in September 1998.^[13] On 26 April 1999 Stepashin closed the border with Russia's Chechnya region and deployed Interior Ministry troops after raids by Chechen rebels into neighboring territories.^[14] The next day, he was named First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia to replace Vadim Gustov.^[15]

Prime Minister (1999)

On 12 May 1999, Yeltsin removed Primakov and named Stepashin as acting Prime Minister of Russia. Yeltsin said that the economy was the reason for the change, and Stepashin pledged to continue economic reforms.^[16] In the days following the appointment, he consulted with his predecessor on the Kosovo crisis.^[17] He was confirmed as prime minister by the Duma on 19 May.^[18] There was a disagreement between him and Yeltsin while forming his cabinet. Stepashin was unable to get Yeltsin and first deputy premier Nikolai Aksyonenko to accept his choice of Alexander Zhukov in a post responsible for economic issues.^[19] The compromise candidate they agreed on, Mikhail Zadornov, resigned after three days in the post, leading to more negotiations.^[20]

Stepashin and FSB director Vladimir Putin met Chinese Central Military Commission deputy head Zhang Wannian on 9 June. Stepashin said that strengthening the strategic partnership between Russia and China was a priority for presidents Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin. He also said the presidents agreed that the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia had to stop.^[21] Stepashin met U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott on 10 June, where they spoke about the possible Russian participation in the Kosovo peacekeeping force.^[22] Stepashin was not informed ahead of time by Yeltsin of Russian troops deploying and seizing Pristina Airport in Kosovo, which occurred a few days later.^[23] He also urged the State Duma to pass a package of austerity bills that were necessary for Russia to receive assistance from the IMF.^[24] Stepashin attended the G8 summit in Germany and spoke with the other leaders, including U.S. President Bill Clinton. On 18 June they spoke about Kosovo,^[25][26] and on 19 June about the Russian economy and the IMF assistance.^[27]

Stepashin succeeded in securing the IMF loan for Russia and a restructuring of its Soviet-era debt.^[28] On 5 July Stepashin met Syrian President Hafez al-Assad during his first visit to Moscow since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.^[29] On 13 July he reached an agreement with U.S. President Al Gore in Paris on exporting Russian steel to the United States.^[30] Stepashin had a joint press conference with Gore in Washington on 27 July, in what was seen as a continuation of the Gore–Chernomyrdin Commission meetings.^[31]

Stepashin's attitude towards the Chechen conflict was markedly different from that of Vladimir Putin. Stepashin had, for example, presented leaders of the separatist regime in Chechnya with monogrammed pistols, praised the activities of the religious extremists who had taken over several Dagestani villages, and had proclaimed publicly: "We can afford to lose Dagestan!".^[32]

Yeltsin removed Stepashin as prime minister on 9 August.^[33] He was the fourth prime minister dismissed by Yeltsin in eighteen months.^[34] In the same statement, Yeltsin announced the appointment of Putin as acting prime minister and also endorsement him for the presidential election in 2000.^[35] Stepashin said shortly after his dismissal that he lost the post because he refused to serve a certain interest group, referring to "the Family" of oligarchs around Yeltsin.^[28]

Later career

After having been fired from the position of Prime Minister, Stepashin joined the political party Yabloko for the Russian parliamentary elections of 1999 and was elected to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. Later on he resigned his parliamentary seat and became head of the Account Chamber of the Russian Federation, the federal audit agency. He held this job until 2013.

Since 2007, Stepashin is the head of the revived Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society.^[36]

On 27 March 2024, Stepashin met with the Vietnamese Ambassador to Russia Dang Minh Khoi (Vietnamese: Đặng Minh Khôi) who is an expert on China and Northeast Asia Department affairs for the government of Vietnam.^[37]