After a brief career as a public relations director at the television channel
ORT from 1998 to 1999, Surkov was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the
Presidential Administration of Russia in 1999. According to the Dossier Center, he has supported far-right groups since at least 2000. Early in his tenure, Surkov often appeared in public and international media as a spokesperson for the Kremlin. In August 2000, he confirmed that
Gazprom would acquire
Vladimir Gusinsky's
Media-Most, then the owner of
NTV, Russia's only nationwide independent television channel. In September 2002, he announced that the Kremlin would not reinstate the statue of
KGB founder
Felix Dzerzhinsky, which had been removed during the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. After the
2003 State Duma election, when
United Russia won 37.6% of the vote, Surkov said: "We are living in a new Russia now." In March 2004, he was additionally appointed aide to the president. Since 2006, Surkov has promoted a political doctrine he called
sovereign democracy, intended as a response to democracy-promotion efforts by the United States and European states. Western media often described the doctrine as controversial, while Russian media and much of the political elite generally endorsed it. Surkov described the concept as a distinct Russian political language for use in relations with the outside world. and
Our Russian Model of Democracy is Titled Sovereign Democracy in June. On 8 February 2007,
Moscow State University marked the 125th anniversary of U.S. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt's birth with a conference titled "Lessons of the
New Deal for Modern Russia and the World", attended by Surkov and political consultant
Gleb Pavlovsky. Surkov compared Roosevelt's policies to those of President Putin, describing the New Deal as a potential model for modern Russia. Pavlovsky suggested that Putin should follow Roosevelt's example and seek a third presidential term. According to
The Moscow Times, Surkov influenced the appointment of
Ramzan Kadyrov as acting
Head of the Chechen Republic on 15 February 2007. Kadyrov later served multiple terms as head of Chechnya and has been widely accused of human rights abuses. In October 2009, Surkov warned that opening and modernizing Russia's political system—a reform agenda stressed by President
Dmitry Medvedev—could lead to instability that "could rip Russia apart". In September 2011,
Mikhail Prokhorov resigned from the
Right Cause party after five months as its leader. He described the party as a puppet of the Kremlin and called Surkov the "main puppet master of the political process" (), according to
Korrespondent, as reported by
The New York Times. The Kremlin responded that Surkov would remain in his role. At that time,
Reuters described Surkov as the Kremlin's "shadowy chief political strategist", one of the most powerful men in the government and a close ally of then–Prime Minister Putin. Reflecting on his career at the time, Surkov stated: "I was among those who helped
Boris Yeltsin to secure a
peaceful transfer of power; among those who helped President Putin stabilize the political system; among those who helped President Medvedev liberalize it. All the teams were great." During this period, Surkov was involved in supporting pro-government youth movements, including
Nashi. He met with movement leaders and participants several times and delivered lectures on the political situation. Nashi has been described by journalist
Edward Lucas as the Kremlin's equivalent of the Soviet-era
Komsomol. and
Arkady Dvorkovich Following
Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency in 2012, commentators noted that Surkov became increasingly marginalized as Putin shifted toward more direct repression rather than the political management associated with Surkov. As deputy prime minister, Surkov criticized the
Investigative Committee of Russia for pursuing cases against opposition leaders, arguing such matters should fall under the prosecutor general's office. The Committee announced that he had offered to resign on 7 May 2013, while Surkov himself said he submitted his resignation on 28 April 2013. Putin accepted his resignation on 8 May 2013. His work immediately centered on developments in Ukraine during the November 2013
Euromaidan protests and the February 2014
Revolution of Dignity. Surkov had earlier been described as the Kremlin's "
Éminence grise" or "Grey Cardinal" for shaping the concept of "sovereign democracy" and overseeing state media propaganda. On 17 March 2014, one day after the
Crimean referendum, Surkov was among the first eleven Russian officials sanctioned by the United States. The measures, enacted through the
Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN), froze any US assets and barred entry to the United States. Surkov dismissed the sanctions, stating: "The only things that interest me in the US are
Tupac Shakur,
Allen Ginsberg, and
Jackson Pollock. I don't need a visa to access their work." On 21 March 2014, the
European Union also added Surkov to its
sanctions list, barring him from entry and freezing his EU-based assets. In February 2015, Ukraine's security service (SBU) accused Surkov of coordinating snipers responsible for killings during the January 2014 protests. The Russian government rejected these claims as "absurd". Academic research has highlighted Surkov's central role in efforts to promote a "
Novorossiya" identity in eastern Ukraine, which largely failed to take root.
2016 email leaks " talks in October 2016, with Surkov between Putin and
Frank-Walter Steinmeier In October 2016, the Ukrainian hacker group CyberHunta released over a gigabyte of emails and documents alleged to belong to Surkov. According to the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, the 2,337 emails came from the official government account "prm_surkova". The Kremlin dismissed the documents as forgeries. Media outlets reported that the correspondence described Russian efforts to destabilize Ukraine and coordination with opposition leaders in separatist-held areas of eastern Ukraine. Among the leaked material was a document sent by
Denis Pushilin, then chairman of the People's Council of the Donetsk People's Republic, listing casualties between 26 May and 6 June 2014.
Removal from office " talks in October 2019, with Surkov next to
Sergei Lavrov On 11 February 2019, Surkov published an article in
Nezavisimaya Gazeta titled "The Long State of Putin", in which he outlined his concept of "
Putinism". The article was widely covered in Russian and international media. On 18 February 2020, Surkov was dismissed as presidential adviser. A week later, he told
Actualnye kommentarii that he had resigned on his own initiative, echoing reasons cited earlier by journalists
Vladimir Solovyev and
Alexei Venediktov. He said that he had focused mainly on Donbas and Ukraine, but that the "context" had changed. In the same interview, he stated that "There is no Ukraine" and argued that "coercion to fraternal relations by force is the only method that has historically proven its effectiveness in the Ukrainian direction". == House arrest reports (2022) ==