Mikhail Fradkov

In April 2018, the United States imposed sanctions on him and 23 other Russian nationals. Pavel Fradkov, the son of Mikhail Fradkov, is a deputy head of the state property watchdog Rosimushchestvo. Given his vast political experience, he is often suggested as a possible successor to Vladimir Putin when his time in office comes to an end.

In November 2010 reports emerged that one of Fradkov's intelligence officers, a Colonel Shcherbakov, had defected to the United States on 21 June 2010, having betrayed a Russian spy ring in the United States. Critics alleged that the suspicions that Shcherbakov was a double agent which emerged when Shcherbakov turned down a promotion requiring a lie detector test should have been followed up more aggressively. Shcherbakov also had a daughter in the United States. Kommersant, which broke the story, speculated that Fradkov might be replaced by Sergei Naryshkin and/or Russian intelligence services reorganized.

On 6 October 2007, President Putin announced that he would appoint Fradkov as head of the Foreign Intelligence Service.

On 12 May 2004, Fradkov was appointed Prime Minister for the second time, as Vladimir Putin had won the presidential election and been inaugurated on 7 May (see also Mikhail Fradkov's Second Cabinet). On 12 September 2007 Fradkov announced his resignation to President Putin, which Putin accepted, nominating Viktor Zubkov as Fradkov's successor. Putin bestowed an award on Fradkov and said that he would remain in office until the confirmation of a successor by the Duma. Zubkov was confirmed on 14 September 2007.

In late 1992, Fradkov was appointed Deputy Minister for Foreign Economic Relations. Less than a year later, in October 1993, he became First Deputy Minister for Foreign Economic Relations. On 15 April 1997, a presidential decree by Boris Yeltsin appointed Fradkov Minister of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, a post which he kept for nearly a year. In the middle of 1999, another presidential decree made him Minister of Trade. He was made director of the Federal Tax Police by Vladimir Putin in 2001, having previously been Deputy Secretary of the Security Council. In 2003 he was made Russia's representative to the European Union. On 1 March 2004, he was nominated by Putin as the next Prime Minister, and this appointment was approved by the Duma on 5 March.

Fradkov was born near Samara to a family of Jewish origin on his father's side. He studied at both the Moscow Machine Tool Design (станкоинструментальный) Institute (graduated 1972) and the Foreign Trade Academy (graduated 1981). In 1973, he was posted to the economic section of the Soviet Union's embassy in India, where he remained for two years. He later held several positions back in Russia. In 1991, he was Russia's representative to General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Geneva.

Mikhail Yefimovich Fradkov (Russian: Михаи́л Ефи́мович Фрадко́в , IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil jɪˈfʲiməvʲɪtɕ frɐtˈkof] ; born 1 September 1950) is a Russian politician who served as Prime Minister of Russia from 2004 to 2007. An Independent, he was the head of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service from 2007 to 2016. Since 4 January 2017, Fradkov has been Director of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies.