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When she refused because she wanted to focus on her science career, they called the head of her graduate program. While studying to be a scientist, leaders of the youth division of St Petersburg's Soviet Communist Party asked her to join their organisation. "I was not eager for politics," she admitted to Russian media in 2019. Like others in Mr Putin's inner circle, Valentina Matviyenko got her start in politics in the 1970s in St Petersburg, back when it was known as Leningrad. Throughout his long reign, Vladimir Putin has projected an image of a solitary, almost monk-like figure who toils, as he puts it, "like a galley slave" for Russia.Įven his former wife, his children and his rumoured new partner never appear publicly by his side.īut in reality, he has surrounded himself with a close-knit group of allies, many of whom he has known since his 20s.Įveryone in this photograph, except for Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (on Vladimir Putin's left) got their start in politics in St Petersburg. In Putin's Russia, you're nobody unless you're from St Petersburg
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It put her right in the path of a young KGB agent-turned-politician who would help her become the most powerful woman in Russia since Catherine the Great. Valentina Matviyenko was born in Shepetivka, west of Kyiv, when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union.īut her decision to study chemistry as a young university student in Russia's historic imperial capital changed her life.
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With the thanks of her president, Ms Matviyenko returned to her chair.Īt no point did she seem fazed that she was asking the president of Russia to invade her homeland. "It is simply immoral to continue discussing it to death and dragging it out while pretending that something is being done." "I believe it is time to make a decision," she said. She concluded with a plea to Vladimir Putin. And borrowing one of Mr Putin's favourite talking points, she said the West was "trying to pit the two Slavic fraternal nations against each other".