Who is the second most powerful man in Russia? Meet Igor Sechin

Igor Ivanovich Sechin is a Russian oligarch and a government official, considered a close ally and “de facto deputy” of Vladimir Putin. Sechin has been a confidant of Russian leader Vladimir Putin since the early 1990s. Sechin was chief of staff to Putin when he was the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in 1994.

From 1991 to 1996, he worked at the Saint Petersburg mayor’s office and became the chief of staff of the first deputy mayor, Vladimir Putin in 1994.

On 28 February 2022, concerning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union blacklisted Sechin and had all his assets frozen. In March, the UK government imposed sanctions that involved freezing Sechin’s assets and a travel ban.

Who is the second most powerful man in Russia? Meet Igor Sechin

In December 2014, a CNBC article noted that Sechin is “widely believed to be Russia’s second-most powerful person” after President Putin. In December 2017, The Guardian noted that Sechin “is widely seen as the second most powerful man in Russia after Vladimir Putin”.