Popovkin, Vladimir Alexandrovich

Since 1975 - in the Soviet Army . He graduated from the Military Engineering Red Banner Institute named after A.F. Mozhaysky in Leningrad in 1979 . He served at the Baikonur cosmodrome : engineer of the department, head of the department, team leader at the launch complex No. 1 ("Gagarin launch").

In 1986 he graduated from the F.E.Dzerzhinsky Military Academy with honors. Since 1989, he served in the Office of the Chief of Space Facilities of the USSR Ministry of Defense .

Since 1991, he served in the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation : senior operator, group head, deputy head of the line, and since 1999 - head of the line. When space troops were created in the Russian Federation in July 2001 , Major General Popovkin was appointed the first chief of staff of the new type of troops. Since March 10, 2004 - Commander of the Space Forces of the Russian Federation. Colonel General (February 22, 2005 ).

Since June 30, 2008 - Chief of Armaments of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation - Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation . The military rank of army general was awarded by decree of the President of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev on February 22, 2009 . Doctor of Technical Sciences.

On March 30, 2009 he was discharged from active military service to the reserve and transferred to the category of federal civil servants, while retaining the post of chief of armaments of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation - Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation.

Since April 30, 2010 - Acting State Advisor to the Russian Federation, Grade 2 ^[1] . Since March 19, 2013 - current State Advisor to the Russian Federation, Class 1 ^[2] .

On June 21, 2010, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 767, he was appointed to the post of First Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation ^[3] .

On April 29, 2011, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation, he was relieved of his post of First Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation ^[4] and by order of the Government of the Russian Federation, he was appointed head of the Federal Space Agency ( Roscosmos ) ^[5] .

After the accident, Proton-M LV on July 2, 2013, Vladimir Popovkin, without personal protective equipment (since he felt responsible for the accident), went to her place and was poisoned by UDMH vapors, which, according to doctors, caused the disease and death on June 18, 2014 years ^[6] .

On October 10, 2013, by order of the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, he was relieved of his post as head of the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation.

On the morning of March 7, 2012, Vladimir Popovkin was placed in the neurosurgical department of the Burdenko hospital in a moderate state. ^[7]

According to an official statement from the representative of the press service of Roscosmos to RIA Novosti , ^{[8] the} reason for hospitalization was

... long-term physical and emotional stress caused, inter alia, by frequent business trips with time zone changes and disruption of the usual rhythm of work, preparation and conduct of a number of events ...

Among the possible causes of the disease was also called the preparation and holding by Popovkin of the final collegium of Roscosmos for 2011, which took place on March 6 (on the eve of hospitalization). ^[7]

On March 20, 2012, returning to his duties, Popovkin resolutely refuted the versions of the reasons for his hospitalization contained in some media outlets ^[9] :

The nonsense that was published on the Internet does not correspond to reality even by half a percent ... The informational background that was created in the early days of my illness allowed me to understand that some managers of Roskosmos enterprises have something to lose as a result of reforms being carried out in the industry. And if the majority understands that the changes are ripe and necessary, then individual leaders place their survival above the interests of the industry and the prestige of Russian cosmonautics. I want to say that the industry will be put in order and financial flows will become transparent and open.

On March 21, 2012, an open letter appeared on the Internet by the Deputy General Director of Russian Space Systems OJSC (the development company of the GLONASS navigation system) I. I. Golub, in which he urges Popovkin to resign.

However, with your arrival in our industry, events have begun that cannot be understood or accepted. Your legal nihilism shows that a high-ranking leader can allow himself with impunity everything that previously seemed unthinkable to us. You started your activity in the industry by ordering to halve the official salaries of directors of enterprises in the industry. And they praised this decision in the press, showing everyone that you can ignore the Labor Code of the Russian Federation (in particular, article 72). At the same time, in the organization under the authority of Roscosmos, TsENKI, you created a structure led by Mr. Vaganov N.I. without a visa which does not sign a single act of acceptance of the work performed, although formally there is not a word about it in the Roscosmos regulations. You have created an uncontrolled, from the point of view of the law on civil service, group of persons who have received unlimited powers. The additional price checks invented by them under state contracts concluded as a result of the tender, and their requirements for the return of part of the funds, have nothing to do with the legislation on tenders. At the end of everything, I was personally shocked by the message about the drunken brawl that took place with your personal participation on March 6 ... Of course, using your position, you can continue to amaze us, but maybe you will quietly leave. It’s a shame, after all ... to us. ^[ten]

The press service of Roscosmos said they consider the open letter to be an attempt by Russian Space Systems OJSC to justify itself in response to the allegations made earlier in Popovkin’s interview with the Izvestia newspaper. According to the results of an audit of the financial activities of the RCC, Ivan Golub was fired. ^[eleven]

In Roskosmos, they denied that the head of the space agency, Vladimir Popovkin, suffered a head injury in a fight, as Ivan Golub, one of the leaders of Russian Space Systems OJSC, writes in his open letter to the head of the agency. “The author of an open letter knows that there was no fight that he mentions,” a spokesman for the Russian Space Agency told Interfax. ^[12] According to the observer of Kommersant-Dengi magazine, Internet publications about Popovkin’s participation in a drunken brawl, as well as a parody of Popovkin that appeared on the TV show “The Big Difference ” ( Channel One ) on March 10, 2012, are part of the campaign to discredit an official organized by those circles in Roscosmos whose financial and power interests were affected in the course of Popovkin’s reform of the department. ^[13]

The National Space Agency of Kazakhstan was extremely dissatisfied with Popovkin regarding cooperation on the Baikonur Cosmodrome ^[14] .

After the accident of the Proton-M launch vehicle, Vladimir Popovkin, without personal protective equipment (since he felt responsible for the accident), went to her place and was exposed to UDMH vapors, which caused cancer. ^[15] June 18, 2014 Vladimir Popovkin died in Israel at the Yitzhak Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva , where he was treated for cancer. ^{[16] [17]}

He was buried in Moscow at the Troekurovsky cemetery ^[18] .

• Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" III degree ^[19]
• Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" IV degree
• Order of Military Merit
• Order of Honor
• Medal of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland Order, II degree ( February 21, 1996 ) - for his great contribution to the successful completion of the first stage of Russian-American cooperation in the field of manned space flights under the Mir-Shuttle program ^[20]
• Full member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics named after K. E. Tsiolkovsky
• Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences
• Prize of the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology (2005)

On August 2, 2013, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, according to the results of the work of the State Commission to investigate the causes of accidents of the Proton-M launch vehicle, reprimanded Vladimir Popovkin “for improper performance of official duties” ^[21] .

Brother - Popovkin Vasily Alexandrovich (b. 1960), entrepreneur. He died in 2005. ^[22] .

Vladimir Popovkin was twice married. From the first marriage - daughter Natalia, from the second - daughter Anna ^[23] .

• Curriculum Vitae on the website of the Ministry of Defense of Russia
• Popovkin, Vladimir - an article in the Lentapedia . year 2012.
• On the conferment of V. Popovkin the military rank of “Army General”
• Biography // Russian Military Review: Monthly Journal. Information and analytical publication of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation . - M .: Agency "Voeninform", 2009. - No. 3 . - ISSN 0134-921X .

• Official site of the administration of Baikonur. Honorary citizens of the city.