Yevgeny Adamov

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Yevgeny Olegovich Adamov is a former Soviet-trained nuclear physicist and senior Russian government official, most prominently known for his tenure as Russia's Minister of Atomic Energy in the late 1990s and early 2000s, followed by a high-profile prosecution for corruption and misuse of public funds.

Key moments

1939Born in the Soviet Union, launched his career working on Soviet nuclear industry engineering projects
1998Appointed Minister of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation, overseeing the country's civil and civilian nuclear regulatory portfolio
2001Removed from his ministerial position as public scrutiny of alleged financial irregularities in the nuclear ministry mounted
2005Arrested by Russian law enforcement on charges of embezzlement, abuse of office, and fraud tied to international nuclear safety aid programs
2006Found guilty on corruption charges and sentenced to a term of imprisonment
2008Released on parole after serving a portion of his prison sentence

Post-Soviet nuclear sector governance context

Adamov led the Russian atomic energy body at a challenging transitional moment: the decade after the collapse of the USSR, when the cash-strapped state struggled to maintain aging Soviet nuclear infrastructure, secure Western grant funding for reactor safety upgrades, and negotiate new civil nuclear export deals. His tenure came just before the full centralization of the entire Russian nuclear complex under the unified state corporation Rosatom, a reform that closed many of the unregulated, opaque commercial loopholes that the prosecution alleged Adamov exploited.

Precedent for Russian nuclear sector anti-corruption oversight

Adamov's high-profile case was one of the earliest major public corruption prosecutions of a top-tier nuclear official under the Vladimir Putin administration. It drew widespread international attention to concerns that funds earmarked for preventing nuclear safety disasters in former Soviet sites were being diverted for private use, and it paved the way for much stricter central government auditing and control of all Russian nuclear industry international project budgets in the years after his dismissal.

Overview

Yevgeny Adamov

native name	Евгений Адамов
native name lang	ru
office	Adviser to the Prime Minister of Russia
term start	2002
term end	2004
prime minister	Mikhail Kasyanov Viktor Khristenko (acting) Mikhail Fradkov
office1	Member of the Security Council of Russia

Biography

term end1	27 May 2000

president1	Boris Yeltsin Vladimir Putin

office2	Minister for Atomic Energy of Russia

term start2	4 March 1998

term end2	28 March 2001

predecessor2	Viktor Mikhaylov

successor2	Alexander Rumyantsev

prime minister2	Viktor Chernomyrdin Sergey Kiriyenko Yevgeny Primakov Sergei Stepashin Vladimir Putin Mikhail Kasyanov

birth date	April 28, 1939

birth place	Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union

party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union (until 1991)

alma mater	Moscow Aviation Institute

awards	Order of the Badge of Honour (1982) State Prize of the Russian Federation (2024)

Yevgeny Adamov was born on 28 April 1939 in Moscow. After graduating in 1962 from the Moscow Aviation Institute with a major in mechanical engineering, he joined the I. V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy and worked there until 1986.[1] From 1986 to 1998 Adamov directed NIKIET, a Russian state nuclear research and design institute.[2]

In 2005 he was arrested in Bern, Switzerland, on fraud charges. The arrest was made at the request of the United States. The United States accused Adamov of diverting up to US$9 million which the United States Department of Energy gave Russia to help improve security at its nuclear facilities. Extradition requests were filed first by the United States and then by Russia, which has protested about the move by the United States. Adamov was finally extradited to Russia. The move was widely covered as a successful ploy by the Russian government to prevent Adamov from telling US authorities state secrets that he knew.[3]

In 2008 Adamov was convicted in Russia of abuse of office and defrauding the Russian government of some $31 million in US aid funds intended for security upgrades for aging nuclear reactors.

On 20 February 2008 he was convicted of fraud and misuse of power by the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow and sentenced to 5.5 years of imprisonment.[4]

He was released from jail when his sentence was suspended by a higher-level court on 17 April 2008.[5]

Awards and decorations

Order of the Badge of Honour (1982)[6]

Honoured Worker of Science and Technology of the Russian Federation (11 October 1995)[7]

Medal "In Commemoration of the 850th Anniversary of Moscow"[1]

Order of Tomsk Glory (6 May 2022)[8]

State Prize of the Russian Federation in science and technology for 2023 (10 June 2024)[9]

Yevgeny Adamov

WorldBrand briefing

Post-Soviet nuclear sector governance context

Precedent for Russian nuclear sector anti-corruption oversight

Biography

Awards and decorations

External links

References