Ivan Rybkin

Ivan Petrovich Rybkin (Russian: Ива́н Петро́вич Ры́бкин; born 20 October 1946) is a Russian politician. He was Chairman of Russia's State Duma in 1994–96 and Secretary of the Security Council in 1996–98. He ran for the Russian presidency in 2004, before dropping out after allegedly being kidnapped and drugged by Russian state Federal Security Service (FSB) officers.

Ivan Rybkin Ива́н Ры́бкин
6th Chairman of the State Duma
In office 14 January 1994 – 17 January 1996
President	Boris Yeltsin
Preceded by	Ruslan Khasbulatov as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Mikhail Rodzianko as Chairman of the State Duma of Russian Empire
Succeeded by	Gennadiy Seleznyov
5th Secretary of the Security Council
In office 19 October 1996 – 2 March 1998
Preceded by	Alexander Lebed
Succeeded by	Andrei Kokoshin
Personal details
Born	Ivan Petrovich Rybkin 20 October 1946 Semigorka, Voronezh Oblast, USSR
Nationality	Russian

Early life

He was born in village of Semigorka, Voronesh Oblast. In 1968, Rybkin graduated from Volgograd Agricultural Institute, and in 1991 from the Soviet Academy of Social Sciences.

Political career

After a career on lower ranks of the Communist Party, Rybkin was elected as peoples' deputy to the congress of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in 1990. In 1993, Rybkin became a member of the Agrarian Party of Russia. That very year in December, he was elected deputy of the State Duma.

Speaker of Russian State Duma

In 1994, Rybkin was elected speaker of the State Duma. In January 1995, he became a member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. In July of that year, Rybkin became a leader of the Ivan Rybkin Bloc.

Ivan Rybkin Bloc got 1.39% of the vote in the 1995 Russian legislative election, falling short of a 5% electoral threshold. Its campaign video clip featured two cows who discussed fairness in a philosophical manner.[1]

In March 1998, Rybkin was appointed Deputy Prime Minister for Commonwealth of Independent States affairs.

Presidential candidate and kidnapping

In 2004, Rybkin was nominated by Berezovsky's Liberal Party for the Russian presidential elections. During the campaign, on 2 February 2004, he accused incumbent President Vladimir Putin of organizing terrorist acts in Russia in 1999 and of being involved in shady business activities with Yury Kovalchuk, Mikhail Kovalchuk, Gennady Timchenko, KiNEx and the Russia Bank, which allegedly swallowed up a vast share of the nation's financial flows.

Rybkin's candidacy aligned itself strongly with Berezovsky's politics.[2] While it was believed that Rybkin would, even optimistically, be unable to receive more than 2% of the vote, it was also believed that he might receive a sizable enough amount of funding from Berezovsky that he could orchestrate a significant amount of anti-Putin campaigning in advance of the election.[3]

Many Russians had reported themselves to be too unfamiliar with Rybkin to have an opinion on him.[4]

In February 2004, Rybkin disappeared for 4 days under mysterious circumstances. A day after his return he accused the Putin administration of complicity in the 1999 bomb attacks in Moscow that led to a war in the Russian breakaway republic of Chechnya.[5] Five days later, Rybkin appeared in Kyiv. He stated later that he had been kidnapped and drugged by Russian FSB agents [6] who lured him to Ukraine promising to arrange meeting with the former Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov. Upon arrival he was offered refreshments in the apartment, at which point he became "very drowsy." After being unconscious, he woke up on 10 February. Upon waking, he was shown a videotape in which he was performing "revolting acts" conducted by "horrible perverts". He was told that the tape would be made public if he continued with his presidential campaign.[7][8] According to Alexander Litvinenko, the FSB agents apparently treated Rybkin with their standard truth drug.[6][9]

Rybkin said he feared for his safety if he returned to Russia, and whilst he initially continued the campaign from overseas, on 5 March 2004, he withdrew from the race, saying he did not want to be part of "this farce," as he called the elections.[10]

References

1. Чуракова, Ольга (22 August 2013). "Выбирай или проиграешь: лучшие предвыборные ролики российских политиков". Большой город (in Russian).
2. "Russian Election Watch, vol. 3, no. 6" (PDF). Harvard University (Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs, Davis Center for Russian & Eurasian Studies) and Indiana University-Bloomington. March 2004. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
3. "Russian Election Watch, vol. 3, no. 4" (PDF). Harvard University (Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs, Davis Center for Russian & Eurasian Studies) and Indiana University-Bloomington. January 2004. Retrieved 29 October 2018.
4. И.Рыбкин - кандидат в президенты FOM
5. Politkovskaya, Anna (2007) A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia
6. Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko. Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB. New York: Free Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1416551652.
7. "Russian candidate 'was kidnapped'". BBC. 13 February 2004. Retrieved 18 November 2018.
8. Biles, Peter (13 February 2004). "Russia's 'spy thriller' saga". BBC. Retrieved 18 November 2018.
10. "Rybkin drops challenge to Putin". 5 March 2004.