Gleb Pavlovsky, a Soviet-era dissident who worked as a political consultant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for 15 years before becoming a critic, has died at the age of 71 after a prolonged illness, according to his family’s announcement on Telegram.
Pavlovsky helped Putin burnish his strongman image before falling out of favor in 2011. No details about his illness were provided, and funeral arrangements were not announced.
Born in Odesa, Pavlovsky became involved in dissident activities as a university student. In 1982, he was arrested, pleaded guilty to the charges, and testified against some of his colleagues.
He was sentenced to three years of internal exile but returned to Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and joined a pro-democracy camp spawned by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms. He became a political consultant and helped stage a successful re-election campaign for Russia’s first president, Boris Yeltsin, in 1996.
After Yeltsin stepped down, Pavlovsky helped secure Putin’s first election in March 2000 and continued to consult the Kremlin until he lost the job of an adviser to the presidential office in 2011.
Pavlovsky began criticizing the Kremlin and denounced efforts to tighten control over Russia’s political scene, including a crackdown on the opposition and independent media. He also strongly condemned Putin’s decision to send troops into Ukraine more than a year ago.
Pavlovsky’s death adds to a series of prominent Russian officials and business people who have died since the start of the war. Marina Yankina, a high-ranking defense official in the war against Ukraine, was found dead after falling from a high-rise window in an apartment building in St. Petersburg earlier this month.
Russian Ministry of the Interior Maj. Gen. Vladimir Makarov died of an apparent suicide in a Moscow suburb, also this month. Late last year, Col. Vadim Boiko was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds in what was described as a suicide.
Sausage tycoon Pavel Antov, who also criticized the invasion of Ukraine, plunged to his death from a luxury hotel in India three days after a pal lost his life on the same trip.
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