Anatoly Kiselev has resigned from GNPZ after 25 years service as General Director. Ogarev has been tipped as his successor (438 words)

Published: 2/5/2001

On 23rd January, President Putin accepted the resignation of 62-year-old Anatoly Kiselev, General Director of GNPZ (the State Scientific Industrial Centre), Russia's largest space enterprise, due to health problems. Kiselev had been in post at Krunichev GNPZ for 25 years. The appointment of his successor, has become something of a litmus test of Putin performance, in reconciling the aspirations of the “Kremlin family” and the will of the existing management of the Industry. Kiselev's resignation is reported to come reluctantly, but health problems had led him to proffer his resignation on no fewer than three previous occasions (in May and October of 2000 and in early January 2001). The lack of a successor is apparently the reason for the delay in Putin's acceptance. Kiselev himself favours 48-year old Alexander Medvedev, his first deputy at Khrunichev for 7 years. He is reported to have reiterated his request for the appointment at a meeting with Putin on the 23rd of January. It seems likely that Kiselev's successor will be Alexei Ogarev, former deputy chairman of Boris Yeltsin's Presidential Administration, recently displaced from his position as General Director of the now defunct State arms exporting agency, Rosvooruzhenie. Considered to be close to the “Kremlin Family”, Ogarev's dismissal from the lucrative arms export agency was not well received by Yeltsin or those around him, who had gone to considerable lengths to replace the previous incumbent, Gregory Rapota, with Ogarev in August of 1999. There was considerable pressure for Ogarev to be given a job of similar status, which in many ways the Krunichev post is, given the relative success of Russian space products on the global market. Ogarev is a close friend of Yeltsin's son-in-law, working at the Moscow Aviation Institute and has helped considerably in the development of his career. Upon graduation he spent several years working in the Salyut Design Bureau - part of the Khrunichev Centre since 1993. According to reports Kiselev is less than pleased with his possible replacement, given that Ogarev was not even among the three candidates he had named as possible successors. He falls well short of the professional status Kiselev believes the head of Krunichev should have. While not obliged to accept Kiselev's appointee, it is generally accepted that Putin would respect the retiring General Director's view. If he appoints Ogarev, some sources believe it will indicate just how far Putin has managed to dislodge the accepted status quo in the corridors of power during his tenure to date.

Article ID: 2341