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Birth: May 31, 1960
Citizenship: Russia
Professional discipline/office capacity: First Deputy Chief of Staff for the Russian Presidential Office
Biography: Gromov Alexey Alexeyevich
Gromov Alexey Alexeyevich is a prominent figure in Russian politics and served as a diplomat between the Soviet Union and Russia. He received his degree in history from Moscow State University in 1982, having been born in the city of Zagorsk, which is located close to Moscow. According to reports, he began working with the KGB when he was still a student.
In 1982, he began his career as a Soviet diplomat in Czechoslovakia, working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union. In the late 1980s, when he was serving as an attaché at the Soviet Embassy in Prague, he had the opportunity to meet Vladimir Putin. Even after the fall of the Soviet Union, he maintained his position as an employee of the Russian diplomatic mission in Slovakia.
He was given the position of head of the press service of the President of the Russian Federation on November 22, 1996, in accordance with an instruction given to him by Boris Yeltsin.
It was on March 4, 1998, when he was appointed to his position as head of the press service for the Presidential Administration. Gromov was chosen to be Putin’s spokeswoman on January 4, 2000, and Putin made the announcement (till 2012).
Gromov became a member of the Board of Directors of ORT TV in 2001. In 2004, he was appointed to a position on the Board of Directors of Channel One, the company that eventually succeeded ORT.
He was given the position of Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration on the 12th of May in 2008, and on the 21st of May in 2012, he was promoted to the position of First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration.
Direction of governmental propaganda
Alexei Gromov is in charge of directing the operations of Russian state and quasi-private television, in addition to other forms of media, and he is also in charge of the production of state propaganda in Russia. According to the independent investigative journalists’ portal The Project, Gromov defines the direction and limits of the government’s censorship and propaganda, makes instructions and directives for leading media outlets, and oversees management and financial support for the presidential pool of journalists.
In addition to these responsibilities, Gromov is also reportedly in charge of providing financial support for the presidential pool of journalists. He has been employed by the Presidential Administration for a longer period of time than any of his other coworkers, and it is rumored that Putin has an unbounded level of confidence in him.
Corruption
In the past, he was a participant in the Kremlin’s takeover of the federal TV networks, which began with the seizure of the independent TV channel NTV in 1999 and lasted until 2003. Due to the fact that Putin controls the media industry in Russia, his family and cronies have been successful in constructing a corrupt enterprise in this sector.
Gromov is the proud owner of a home in a prestigious residential neighborhood in the western suburbs of Moscow as well as an apartment in the heart of the city, the combined value of which far exceeds Gromov’s official income. Oleg Deripaska and Roman Abramovich are both oligarchs, and his son, Alexey Gromov Jr., is connected to both of them. Along with Deripaska, he is involved in the production of aluminum rims as part of a joint venture.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on March 20, 2014, that Gromov and 19 other men have been added to the list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN). Gromov was put on the EU sanctions list on May 12th, 2014, because of his role in the crisis that occurred in Crimea in 2014. It is required that any assets he has within the EU be frozen, and he will not be allowed to visit the member states of the EU.
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