Sergei Kirienko

Sergei Kiriyenko's Jewish father, Vladilen Israitel, made his name as a doctor of philosophy. Sergei Kiriyenko was born in Sukhumi, the capital of the Abkhaz ASSR, and grew up in Sochi, in southern Russia. He adopted the Ukrainian surname of his mother. After graduation from high school, Kiriyenko enrolled in the shipbuilding faculty at the Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky) Water Transport Engineers Institute, where his divorced father taught.

Kiriyenko's son Vladimir was appointed CEO of the influential Russian social network VKontakte in December 2021, after the controversial takeover of VKontakte by companies affiliated with state-owned gas giant Gazprom, in what critics said was a sign of the Kremlin tightening its grip over the social media network. Critics have accused the company of sharing user's data with Russia's security services.

Libel lawsuit

In 2004, Novaya Gazeta printed seven articles by columnist Georgy Rozhnov, which accused Kiriyenko of embezzling US$4.8 billion of IMF funds in 1998 when he was Prime Minister of Russia. The newspaper based the accusations on a letter allegedly written to Colin Powell and signed by US Congressmen Philip Crane, Mike Pence, Charlie Norwood, Dan Burton and Henry Bonilla and posted on the website of the American Defense Council. The newspaper went on to claim that Kiriyenko had used some of the embezzled funds to purchase real estate in the United States. The Moscow newspaper, The eXile, announced it had sent the letter as a prank, but later claimed that this had been a joke. In response, Kiriyenko sued Novaya Gazeta and Rozhnov for libel, and in passing judgement in favour of Kiriyenko the court ordered Novaya Gazeta to retract all publications relating to the accusations. The court noted "Novaya gazeta's content on the missing IMF funds include a great deal of unproven information" and also went on to order the newspaper "to publish only officially proven information linking Mr Kiriyenko with embezzlement."