Early Career: the Making of a Power Broker
Certain biographical turns prefigured Dmitry Kozak’s trajectory. Born in Ukraine’s Kirovohrad region, he served his compulsory term in a GRU special-forces unit, entered the Vinnytsia Polytechnic Institute, and in 1980 transferred to the Law Faculty of Leningrad State University named after Zhdanov. He led the university’s operative detachment, became a senior prosecutor in the Leningrad Prosecutor’s Office at just 28, and served as a Communist Party organizer. In the 1990s he was chief legal counsel to the Association of Sea Commercial Ports, later heading the legal department of the defiant Leningrad Legislative Assembly, then chairing the Legal Committee at the St. Petersburg Mayor’s Office under Anatoly Sobchak and Vladimir Yakovlev, before rising to vice-governor.
In May 1999 he became deputy chief of the Presidential Administration for legal affairs, and from August 1999 he ran the Government Staff (Apparat)—the closest “first-wave” Putin ally in that role. That period also saw his first open clash with Dmitry Medvedev, who wrested control of Putin’s campaign headquarters from Kozak, maneuvered a move into the Presidential Administration, and—ultimately, with Medvedev’s help—saw Putin block Kozak’s appointment as Russia’s Prosecutor General in May 2000.
Administrative–Legal Reforms (2000–2004). In the early 2000s Kozak oversaw key state-governance reforms. As a deputy chief of the Presidential Administration, he drove the alignment of regional legislation with federal law, effectively imposing “constitutional order” nationwide. He spearheaded large-scale initiatives delineating powers between the center and the regions, including streamlining areas of joint jurisdiction between the Federation and its subjects. Kozak curtailed the “federal free-for-all,” cutting back the authority of regional leaders and reducing the scope of municipal self-government. In parallel, he worked on a judicial-reform concept: in 2001 he presented proposals to update rules for appointing judges and to limit their irremovability.
Kozak’s proposals included abolishing lifetime status for judges (his working group argued for a judicial retirement age of 65–70—federal civil servants already faced a 60-year cap at the time) and setting 5–10-year terms for court chairs and their deputies; dropping the requirement to coordinate new judicial appointments with regional legislatures; removing the Investigative Committee from the Interior Ministry and transferring to it cases then handled by the police, the tax police, and the prosecutor’s office. A key plank was narrowing judges’ immunity: lifting the blanket prohibition on operational-search measures targeting a judge, and removing the ban on opening criminal cases or conducting investigative actions against a judge without the consent of a judicial qualification board.
Over time, the judiciary increasingly fell under the influence of the Presidential Administration and the FSB; the erosion of judicial independence is often credited to Kozak’s initiatives. He also oversaw reforms in housing and utilities (ZhKH) and other institutional overhauls of that period—laying the foundations of today’s “vertical of power.”
As head of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov’s Government Staff, Kozak was dubbed “prime minister No. 2,” or the “unofficial prime minister.” In this post he implemented an executive-branch reform and planned a reorganization of the Central Bank and the Presidential Administration. Observers noted that the very shape of the new cabinet was the product of Kozak’s administrative reform: to enhance transparency, ministries were trimmed and the executive split into policy-making bodies (authorized to draft bills and issue regulations) and agencies/services tasked with implementing ministerial decisions, alongside specialized supervisory bodies.
International Negotiations and the “Kozak Memorandum.”
In 2003 Kozak attempted to resolve Moldova’s protracted conflict. Under his direction, a Transnistria settlement plan—soon known as the “Kozak Memorandum”—was drafted.
The document envisioned transforming Moldova into an asymmetric federation with special statuses for Transnistria and Gagauzia, recognizing Russian as a state language, and maintaining a Russian peacekeeping presence. Despite preliminary buy-in from the parties, Moldova’s president refused to sign at the last moment, and the plan was shelved. Even so, the initiative showcased Kozak’s capacity to craft unconventional diplomatic fixes to complex problems. In the longer run, Ukraine and Moldova would help close off Kozak’s higher career prospects.
Overseeing the North Caucasus (2004–2007).
In autumn 2004, after the Beslan terrorist attack, Kozak became presidential envoy to the newly created Southern Federal District and simultaneously chaired a Special Federal Commission on the North Caucasus. He was granted broad powers to coordinate federal bodies in the region, at times including the security services. Despite certain successes (such as quickly defusing protests after Beslan), commentators noted that many North Caucasus reforms advanced only with difficulty and met resistance on the ground. Kozak clashed seriously with FSB generals, openly disliked Ramzan Kadyrov and his entourage, and made mistakes in Dagestan. He worked to tamp down open conflicts and fires across the Caucasus, but concluded that local power groups had “monopolized political and economic resources. In all North Caucasus republics, leadership positions in government and major enterprises are held by people bound by kinship ties. As a result, the system of checks and balances has been destroyed, leading to the spread of corruption… The leadership of the North Caucasus republics has become detached from society, turned into a closed caste, and serves exclusively personal interests.” Among his conclusions: the region’s economies were built largely on budget redistribution “locked in” by regional authorities—inefficient and unfair. Federal authorities operated with administrative logic, often making a forced bet on “strongmen,” lacking tools to connect with the population. Kozak believed the Caucasus needed a “Highland Republic.” He also proposed imposing direct federal administration in bankrupt regions.
Ministry of Regional Development (2007–2008).
In 2007 Kozak headed the newly established Ministry of Regional Development. He floated the idea of national projects and equalization programs across Federation subjects. He initially commanded a vast territorial-development budget, but lost control of it at the initiative of Alexei Kudrin.
Sochi Olympics and Big Infrastructure.
From October 2008 Kozak served as deputy prime minister, supervising major infrastructure projects. He was tasked with organizing and delivering the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Kozak effectively acted as the chief operating manager for the construction of Olympic facilities, Sochi’s urban infrastructure and power supply, and expenditure oversight. Despite criticism over the record cost, the project was completed under his watch, and the Games proceeded without major disruptions.
Crimea’s Integration and the Energy Complex
After Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, Kozak was assigned to integrate the new regions into Russia’s legal and economic space. As deputy prime minister, he oversaw the formation of government bodies in Crimea and Sevastopol, tackled acute energy-supply and water-provision issues, and pushed resort-infrastructure development. He supervised tariff policy, the oil-and-gas sector, and the state’s dealings with its largest corporations in those fields.
Professional Qualities and Reputation
Kozak’s relations with Putin’s team and the security bloc were never especially warm: he was too independent. His competence and self-assurance made him reluctant to yield ground. Putin repeatedly handed Kozak the “hardest assignments,” making him a key player in the early 2000s. Kozak combined deep legal expertise with a practical, driven administrator’s temperament. Those who worked with him describe a pragmatic, analytically minded man of action, who preferred concrete results to ideological debate.
His “technocrat” image stuck because of his work style: he rarely made political pronouncements in public, focusing instead on executing tasks and delivering metrics—diligence and loyalty that earned him credit. Kremlin insiders have noted that Kozak wasn’t among the wider elite’s “favorites,” yet enjoyed Putin’s personal trust. He had an open conflict with Dmitry Medvedev; their relationship never gelled. Early on in the Administration, Putin played the tensions among four figures—Aleksandr Voloshin, Medvedev, Kozak, and Igor Sechin. In 2003 Kozak lost the battle for chief of staff to Medvedev; Putin chose the more predictable Medvedev. Kozak worked three months with Medvedev before moving to head Fradkov’s staff in the White House. His relations with the security bloc were extremely fraught; Kozak viewed their function as auxiliary.
Kozak earned a reputation as an effective crisis manager. Time and again he was sent to “unblock” problem areas—restoring order in regions, pushing through tough reforms, or delivering large projects at risk of failure. For that, the media compared him to Anatoly Chubais in the 1990s, who played a similar “universal crisis-manager” role for Boris Yeltsin. Like Chubais, Kozak took on the most “explosive” assignments and got them done—sometimes by hard means. His reputation as a “man for special missions” dates back to the early 2000s, when he provided the legal scaffolding for Putin’s core reforms.
In 2005–2006 Kozak’s name surfaced among potential successors to Putin. In 2003 he led Putin’s reelection campaign but again was not made chief of staff. During succession talks, Kozak backed Sergey Ivanov, and later built a relationship of trust with the future head of the Presidential Administration. Kozak’s circle included Taimuraz Bolloev and Viktor Vekselberg; he also maintained ties with Andrei Kostin and German Gref, and was friendly with the Magomedov family.
In 2012 Putin tasked Kozak with chairing a commission to assess the efficiency of federal and regional authorities; Anton Vaino served as his deputy.
Personal Traits and Management Style
Kozak is highly disciplined. Colleagues note his calm and composure in any situation. In Kremlin circles he acquired the informal nickname “the Cheshire Cat” for smiling often while remaining extremely cautious and impenetrable in his statements.
He prefers to resolve issues in a working, non-public mode. On the one hand, he is known as a polite, cultured manager who avoids crudity; on the other, critics say that behind the soft exterior lies a readiness to enforce a hard line without fanfare. Others recall he could also raise his voice and slam a fist on the table.
With subordinates, Kozak is demanding but correct. He digs deeply into substance, relying on facts and legal norms. He is not prone to populism or improvisation; rather, he acts like a rational administrator who expects strict compliance with procedures. Contemporaries recall that in meetings he often played arbiter, steering debate toward legally precise decisions. The approach won professionals’ respect, even as it sometimes projected the image of a somewhat cold bureaucrat. Many, however, argue that while Kozak is a strong lawyer, he is a poor manager: weak at reading people and prone to managerial missteps—ambitious, but thin on practical follow-through. Many recall that for a long time one of his favorites was Sergey Gaplikov, head of Olympstroy and later the Komi Republic; Kozak backed him and wanted to bring him into the government, but Gaplikov turned out, in the end, to be simply an alcoholic.
Even so, in informal settings Kozak can be personable—his easy smile and knack for defusing tension with a joke helped in negotiations. His personal qualities—restraint, persistence, and refinement—shaped his image as a “quiet technocrat” in the upper echelons of power.
Another hallmark: Kozak consistently opposed using arrests and repression as tools of political culture. As he steadily soured relations with the security services, friends say kompromat was gathered on him; in 2011 Alexei Navalny published what was seen as a commissioned piece tied to the sale of Hungary’s trade mission building in central Moscow in favor of the Regional Development Ministry. The security bloc openly tried to sink Kozak. Notably, Kozak doesn’t know how to steal—that is his distinguishing feature.
One of the main criticisms of Kozak centers on the incomplete realization of his early-2000s reforms. Despite launching important changes, results of administrative reform and reallocation of powers were mixed. Many governors complained that regions were handed extra responsibilities without adequate funding—“more mandates, fewer funds.” The reform, though it optimized federal structures, failed to cleanly separate rule-making and oversight across agencies. Critics faulted Kozak for excessive loyalty to centralization; he did not object to using the law as a tool against regime opponents. In independent media, he was sometimes portrayed as the “gray cardinal” of Kremlin legal policy—a skilled lawyer providing legal cover for politically motivated decisions.
The Ukraine Track and Final Eclipse
In recent years, Kozak’s role on the Ukraine file came to the fore.
He returned to the Presidential Administration in 2020 as a deputy to chief of staff Anton Vaino.
Kozak oversaw directorates for cross-border cooperation and for interregional and cultural ties with foreign countries, and represented Russia in “Normandy format” talks (Russia, Ukraine, Germany, France) on resolving the conflict in Ukraine.
As point man for negotiations with Kyiv, Kozak in 2020–2021 sought a peaceful settlement in Donbas. According to Reuters sources, on February 21, 2022, during the closed portion of Russia’s Security Council meeting, he argued against launching hostilities in Ukraine, and after February 24 held talks with Kyiv, securing several concessions on issues vital to Moscow (including a pledge not to join NATO). But President Putin ultimately rejected the deal and insisted on continuing the war, Reuters reported in August 2022. Kozak, it was said, warned of the war’s heavy consequences and even offered a compromise (NATO non-entry guarantees) to prevent it. His public profile diminished after February 2022, and insiders spoke of a loss of influence.
In August of this year, The New York Times likewise reported that Kozak privately opposed the war; according to the paper’s sources, this year he submitted to Putin another proposal for a ceasefire and peace talks.
For years Kozak occupied the “second echelon”—not a public politician but a backstage organizer—yet his role was strategically important. Political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky has said Putin seriously considered appointing Kozak prime minister in 2004. Instead, Kozak was sent to the Caucasus—perhaps a sign that Putin tires of highly independent actors in his inner circle.
Over time, Kozak drifted to the periphery of power. He started as a candidate for prosecutor general, then prime minister and chief of staff, but held deputy posts and repeatedly lost the back-room game.
In 2025 Kozak lost his final bout to Sergey Kiriyenko and the security-service corporation, which had grown weary of Kozak’s non-system proposals.
People around Kozak say he has been seriously ill and his health has deteriorated of late. No one, they insist, pushed him out of the Kremlin; he has simply spent much time in hospital. He has shifted from an official to one of Putin’s interlocutors.
Rumor had it that Putin wanted to make Kozak presidential envoy to St. Petersburg, but he found no support from Governor Beglov, the Kovalchuk brothers, or Medvedev. Kozak’s public resignation is the first in a long while. Usually such departures come via formal presidential decrees and reassignments to marginal commercial posts—or by granting the rank of presidential adviser or aide. With such a formula, a return to real power becomes almost impossible.
