The former head of the Central Election Commission Vladimir Churov died

The former head of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation Vladimir Churov died on March 22. He was 70 years old, said the newspaper Vedomosti and the press service of the Russian Foreign Ministry. A week ago, Churov was operated on after an extensive heart attack.

During his work, the CEC was regularly accused of covering mass falsifications in the elections of all levels, and his resignation was one of the basic requirements of the mass rallies of the opposition in Moscow after the results of elections to the State Duma in 2011-2012.

In the CEC, Churov was appointed in 2007. One of the first high -profile statements at the post was the "first law of Churov": "Putin is always right." In 2009, the LDPR, along with other representatives of the parliamentary opposition, demanded the resignation of the official. In 2011, he was re-elected as a presidential quota.

In December 2011, after summing up the voting of the State Duma elections, which caused mass protests, Rosia President Dmitry Medvedev called Churov a "wizard." Two years later, the head of the CEC asked "to write less about him", complaining that he was "offended by everyone," and he, by virtue of his position, "cannot answer it."

In the spring of 2016, Churova was not reassigned to the CEC (Ella Pamfilova took his place), later he became an ambassador on special assignments of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Three years later, Putin appropriated to Churov the highest diplomatic rank - the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary ambassador.

• Vladimir Churov, physicist and journalist by education, worked in both specialties in Leningrad. During democratic reforms in the USSR, he went to the Leningrad City Council, from where he moved to the City Hall of St. Petersburg. There he ended up in the committee on external relations of the administration, having worked for five years under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.
• Churov was one of the organizers important for Putin to celebrate the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg in 2003. Soon after, he was elected to the State Duma from the LDPR.