Table of names

Konstantin Pulikovsky

Konstantin Pulikovsky is the head of Russia's technological watchdog, Rostekhnadzor, and was in the news April 2007 for demanding that Transneft repair dangerous defects on two sections of the Druzhba oil pipeline. He was a representative in Russia’s Far Eastern Federal district, a former commander of Russian Troops in Chechnya and had accompanied Kim Jong Il during his three-week train journey through Russia in the summer of 2001. He was recently part of the delegation to the Russian-North Korean intergovernmental commission for economic and technological cooperation that met on March 23 – the first commission meeting in six years – where the delegates discussed various issues, including trade, power-generation cooperation, transport and North Korea's $8.8 billion Soviet-era debt to Russia. He was removed as envoy to North Korea for being too close to Kim Jong Il.

Dmitry Pumpyansky

Pumpyansky began his career in the early 1990s trading metals produced at plants in the Urals. And he is the only businessman in Russia who has gotten the better of MDM Group in an ownership battle. In 2001, he fought off a takeover bid from MDM for his company, Sinarsky Pipe Works in the Sverdlovsk region. Pumpyansky then worked a merger with his former rivals in 2002 and formed TMK. By early 2003, he had gained control of 67% of TMK stock, and he is now general director of Trubnaya Metallurgical, Russia's biggest pipe producer.
http://www.forbes.com/finance/lists/75/2004/LIR.jhtml?passListId=75&passYear=2004&passListType=Person&uniqueId=CFCY&datatype=Person

Victor F. Rashnikov

Chairman of the Board of Directors of Open Joint Stock Company Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, Chairman of Strategic Planning and Corporate Governance Committee, President of Limited Liability Company MMK Managing Company

Victor Rasnikov was born on 13.10.1948 in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region . In 1974 he graduated from Magnitogorsk Institute of Mining and Metallurgy specializing in “Metal-forming process”. In 1994 Mr. Rashnikov got another diploma in “Organization of production administration”. Mr. Rashnikov started his career in Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works in 1967 as a fitter in the metallurgical equipment repair shop. Then he was an operator, crew leader, foreman, shift manager, shop superintendent, head of administration for production and shipments. In 1991 Mr. Rashnikov was appointed Chief Engineer and First Deputy General Director. In 1997 Mr. Rashnikov was appointed General Director of OAO MMK. Since April, 2005 he is Chairman of the Board of Directors. Since 2006 Mr. Rashnikov is President of Limited Liability Company MMK Managing Company Mr. Rashnikov holds a doctor’s degree in technical sciences (1998) and has been elected Honoured Professor of Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys (2002) and Academician of the Russian Academy of Quality Problems. Mr. Rashnikov is the author of many research papers, engineering solutions and scientific reports. He won a prize of the Government of the Russian Federation in science and engineering (2001 and 2002). Mr. Rashnikov got the national prize of Peter the Great “For the outstanding contribution into the Russian economy” (2000). He has numerous governmental and public awards, such as the Medal of Labour Merit (1986), Order of Honour (1995), Order of Merit for Motherland of IV degree (1998) and III degree (2004), Order of Peter the Great (2004), Order of the Reverend Sergiy of Radonezh from the Russian Orthodox Church (2001), Order of the Holy Blessed Grand Prince Daniil of Moscow (2005). Mr. Rashnikov was three times elected Member of the Legislative Assembly of Chelyabinsk region. He is the Chairman of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Chelyabinsk region, President of the Peter the Great International Club of Best Managers, President of Metallurg-Magnitogorsk Ice Hockey Club. Mr. Rashnikov is a member of the Management Bureau of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. He was declared Honorary Citizen of Chelyabinsk region.

Ivan Safronov

Ivan Ivanovich Safronov -- January 16, 1956 – March 2, 2007 -- was a Russian journalist and columnist who covered military affairs for Kommersant. He died after falling from the fifth floor of his Moscow apartment building. His apartment was on the third floor. There are speculations that he may have been killed for his critical reporting. The Taganka District prosecutor's office in Moscow has initiated a criminal investigation into Safronov's death. He allegedly commited suicide, but acquaintances categorically reject this. There were no drugs or alcohol in his system.
Ivan Safronov was born in 1956 in Moscow. In 1979, he graduated with a major in computer engineering from the Engineering Faculty at the Dzerzhinsky Military Academy and began to serve as a military engineer at the 15th Command near Ussuriysk in the Russian Far East. In 1983, Safronov was transferred to the Titov Space Center in Krasnoznamensk, a closed town in the Moscow District. As of January 1993, he worked in the press-service at the Russian Space Troops. On October 2, 1997, Safronov retired from active duty and was transferred to the army reserve as a Lieutenant Colonel. In December 1997, he became a military columnist at the newspaper Kommersant in Moscow. In December 2002, Safronov was made a Colonel in the army reserve.
His work has angered government officials and security service bosses at the Federal Security Service (FSB). He wrote about changes in the defense leadership and problems in military training that had led to the deaths of young soldiers. He also wrote about defense technology and military testing failures that often went unacknowledged and unreported by the army.
In December 2006, Safronov wrote about the third consecutive launch failure of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile. The military did not acknowledge the failure. There have been further allegations that Safronov disclosed classified information in his articles. FSB agents questioned him in 2006 over a story about the Samara-based TsSKB-Progress, the manufacturer of the Soyuz launch vehicle. The agents wanted to know where the columnist had unearthed some sensitive data, but once Safronov showed them the website where he got his facts, the FSB dropped its case.
Safronov had returned in late February from a reporting trip to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where he covered the annual IDEX 2007 arms exhibition's gathering of defense manufacturers. He had stated that he would check information that he had received on possible new deliveries of Russian weapons to the Middle East while at the arms exhibition in the United Arab Emirates. Safronov was interested in the sale of Su-30 fighter jets to Syria and S-300V missiles to Iran. He had information that those deals would be concluded through Belarus, in order for Moscow to avoid accusations in the West of selling weapons to pariah states. Safronov called the editorial office at Kommersant from Abu Dhabi to say that he had found confirmation of his facts. On February 27, he attended a press conference held by the head of the Federal Service of Military and Technical Cooperation Mikhail Dmitriev at ITAR-TASS. There he told colleagues that he had found information that more contracts had been signed between Russia and Syria for the sale of MiG-29 jets and Pantsir-S1 and Iskander-E missiles. He added that he would not write about those deals, however, because he had been warned that doing so would cause an international scandal and the FSB would make charges against him of revealing state secrets stick. He did not say who had warned him. The same day, Safronov called Kommersant and said that he would dictate his story about arms deliveries through Belarus over the telephone.