Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer serving as the current president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012, and as president from 2000 to 2008 and since 2012.
The Cali Cartel was a drug cartel based in southern Colombia, around the city of Cali and the Valle del Cauca. Its founders were the brothers Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela and José Santacruz Londoño. They broke away from Pablo Escobar and his Medellín associates in 1988, when Hélmer "Pacho" Herrera joined what became a four-man executive board that ran the cartel.
Leonid Danylovych Kuchma is a Ukrainian politician who was the second president of Ukraine from 19 July 1994 to 23 January 2005.
Andrey Nikolayevich Illarionov is a Russian economist and former senior policy advisor to Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, from April 2000 to December 2005. Since April 2021, he is a senior fellow at the non-governmental organization Center for Security Policy, which is based out of Washington, D.C. in the United States.
The Cassette Scandal was a Ukrainian political scandal in November 2000 in which Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma was caught on tape ordering the months-earlier kidnapping of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, whose decapitated corpse had recently been found. The scandal was one of the main political events in Ukraine's post-independence history, dramatically affecting the country's domestic and foreign policy. The scandal, triggering the Ukraine Without Kuchma protests, also began a slow and gradual shift of Ukraine's political and cultural orientation from Russia towards the West, although this only became more pronounced after Euromaidan in 2013-2014. The scandal also damaged Kuchma's political career.
Boris Vyacheslavovich Gryzlov is a Russian politician currently serving as the Russian ambassador to Belarus. Previously, he served as the chairman of the State Duma from 2003 to 2011 and as interior minister from 2001 to 2003. He was also the leader of the ruling United Russia party.
Vladimir Kumarin, aka Vladimir Barsukov, aka "Kum" is a Russian businessman, former deputy president of the Petersburg Fuel Company (PTK) between 1998 and 1999, and the boss of the criminal Tambovskaya Bratva of Saint Petersburg.
The North American Forum is an annual meeting of U.S., Canadian and Mexican government and business representatives to discuss issues related to continental economic and social integration. The Forum is chaired jointly by former United States Secretary of State George Shultz, former Mexican Finance Minister Pedro Aspe, and former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed.
Matthias Warnig is a former East German Stasi officer and a Russia-based businessman who has worked closely with Vladimir Putin. He joined the Stasi, the secret police of communist East Germany, in 1974. During the Cold War he engaged in financial crimes by attempting to infiltrate and spy against banks in the Federal Republic of Germany. After the Stasi was disbanded as a criminal organization as a result of the fall of Communism, he was left unemployed and moved to Russia, where he took part in business ventures in cooperation with Putin, whom he had already known as a Stasi officer. He is managing director (CEO) of Nord Stream AG, a company that is majority-owned by the Russian government and that is responsible for the construction and operation of the Nord Stream undersea gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Warnig is under personal sanctions in the United States over his ties to the Russian government and Putin, and what the US government considers to be a Russian geopolitical project. As of 2023 he is also under personal sanctions in the United Kingdom as a collaborator with the Putin regime who is "involved in destabilising Ukraine or undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine, or obtaining a benefit from or supporting the Government of Russia."
Vladimir Alexeyevich Smirnov is a prominent Russian businessman, former Director General of the Petersburg Fuel Company (1997–1998), former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Petersburg Fuel Company (1999–2001). In 2002–2007 he was the Director General of Tekhsnabexport (TENEX) which carries out export of goods and services produced by Russian nuclear enterprises.
Sergey Yevgenyevich Naryshkin is a Russian politician and businessman who has served as the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service since 2016. Previously, he was Chairman of the State Duma (2011–2016) and Kremlin Chief of Staff (2008–2012); he was also chairman of the Historical Truth Commission in May 2009 until it was dissolved in February 2012.
Michael Anthony McFaul is an American academic and diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014. McFaul is currently the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor in International Studies in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, where he is the Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also a Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also a contributing columnist at The Washington Post. Prior to his nomination to the ambassadorial position, McFaul worked for the U.S. National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and senior director of Russian and Eurasian affairs, where he was the architect of U.S. President Barack Obama's Russian reset policy.
The Russian Federation and the Kingdom of Spain, a member state of the European Union, have bilateral foreign relations. Spain and the Grand Duchy of Moscow first exchanged envoys in 1520s; regular embassies were established in 1722. The two countries share a long history of relations, characterized at times by close cooperation and at other times by deep hostility. Soviet-Spanish relations, once terminated after the Spanish Civil War, were gradually reestablished starting in 1963 and were fully established by 1977. Trade between the two countries amounted to two billion euros in 2008. In March 2009, the two countries signed an energy agreement providing national energy companies access to other party's domestic markets.
China and Russia established diplomatic relations after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. American scholar Joseph Nye states:
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, that de facto US-China alliance ended, and a China–Russia rapprochement began. In 1992, the two countries declared that they were pursuing a "constructive partnership"; in 1996, they progressed toward a "strategic partnership"; and in 2001, they signed a treaty of "friendship and cooperation".
Brazil and Ukraine are strategic partners and cooperate in trade, space technology, education, energy, healthcare, and defense. Brazil recognized Ukraine's independence on December 26, 1991, and bilateral relations were established on February 11, 1992. The development of a joint space industry had strengthened the bilateral ties between the two countries. Ukraine considers Brazil its key trade partner in Latin America and has been a vocal supporter of the Brazilian bid for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council.
Katerina Vladimirovna Tikhonova is a Russian scientist, manager, and former acrobatic dancer. She is the second daughter of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Amos J. Hochstein is a U.S. businessman, diplomat, and lobbyist. Currently the Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security under US President Joe Biden, he has worked in the U.S. Congress, has testified before congressional panels and has served in the Barack Obama administration under Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry. He was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in 2011 and as Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs. In 2015, President Barack Obama nominated Hochstein to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources but the Senate did not act on the nomination.
Fiona Hill is a British-American foreign affairs specialist and author. She is a former official at the U.S. National Security Council, specializing in Russian and European affairs. She was a witness in the November 2019 House hearings regarding the impeachment inquiry during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. She earned a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 1998. She currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. She took up office as Chancellor of Durham University in England in June 2023.
2003 Tuzla Island conflict was a crisis in Russia–Ukraine relations at the end of 2003 caused by disputes over the ownership of Tuzla Island and the construction by Russia of a dam in the Kerch Strait to Tuzla Island. The dispute raised fears of an armed confrontation.
Maria Vorontsova, also referred to as Maria Faassen, is a Russian pediatric endocrinologist. She is the eldest child of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
