East Germany and Putin
From 1980 to 1988 as KGB, he worked at "Luch" Research-Industrial Association which was the KGB surveillance operation gathering scientific and technical intelligence in the communist controlled German Democratic Republic (GDR).[4][7] From 1983 to 1988, Chemezov served as the head[8] of the Luch Association representative office in East Germany, where he met Vladimir Putin and Nikolay Tokarev. Tokarev, Chemezov and Putin worked for their KGB boss Lazar Matveev while in East Germany and both Chemezov and Putin lived in the same block of flats in Dresden.[9] There they became friends.[9] According to their colleague and former KGB officer Vladimir Gortanov (also known as Usoltsev), Chemezov worked in Directorate K, which is counterintelligence, and attempted to recruit KGB operatives from West Germany's counterintelligence community especially the West German military counterintelligence or at least from the West German criminal police.[10]
From 1988 to 1996, Chemezov, as the KGB controller with the 3rd department of the 11th department of the 5th department of the KGB, was deputy CEO of the "Sovintersport" Foreign Trade Association under the leadership of Viktor Galaev .[16][17][18] Sovintersport, which held a monopoly on Soviet sports with the West, is a portmanteau of Soviet, International, Export, and Sport formed by Putin and Chemezov.[19][20][21]
Kremlin aide to Putin
From 1996 to 1999, he was chairman of the Department for Foreign Economic Relations within the Office for Presidential Affairs, serving under Putin.[22] Later he transitioned to the position of chairman of the Department for Foreign Economic Relations of the Presidential Administration of Russia.[22] During this time and although both Ukraine and Georgia objected, Chemezov was pivotal in securing for Russia, Russia's correct share from the former USSR's state property, state archives and state debts.[22]
Head of Promexport and Rosoboronexport
From September 1999 to November 2000, Chemezov served as CEO of Promexport. In August 2000, he became a member of the Presidential Committee on Military and Engineering Cooperation between Russia and Foreign Countries. From November 2000 to April 2004, Chemezov served as first deputy CEO of Rosoboronexport and then as its CEO from 2004 to 2007.[23] After Rosoboronexport obtained an 66% stake in VSMPO-Avisma in October 2006, Sergey Chemezov became chairman of VSMPO-AVISMA in November 2006.[24]
CEO of Rostec
On 26 November 2007, Putin appointed by decree Chemezov as CEO of Russian Technologies Corporation,[25][26] which was renamed Rostec in late 2012. He is credited with the consolidation of hundreds of state-owned enterprises that were made his responsibility as the fruit of government decree.[27] In the decade after his appearance, the total volume of exports doubled to just under $14 billion.[27]
At the 6th United Russia party convention held on 2 December 2006, Chemezov was elected to the party's Supreme Council. At the 7th party convention on 26 May 2012, Chemezov was reelected.
Sanctions
On 28 April 2014, he was barred by the Obama administration from entering the United States due to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.[28]
He was sanctioned by the UK government in 2014 in relation to the Russo-Ukrainian War.[29]
On 12 September 2014 as part of a much wider expansion of its programme, Chemezov was sanctioned by the European Union over the war in Ukraine.[30] The same day, Chemezov was mentioned in a communiqué of the US Treasury because the firm he directs was subjected to sanctions as part of a sweeping ban on the Russian defence sector.[31] The joint September 2014 sanctions packages had been agreed in principle at the 2014 NATO Wales summit.[32]
