Russian political scientist and strategist Gleb Pavlovsky has died at 71, said Simon Kordonsky, head of the department of local self-government at the Moscow School of Economics. He reportedly died of an unspecified illness.
Pavlovsky is the founder and director of the Foundation for Effective Politics. This political strategy firm worked on the presidential campaigns of Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and Viktor Yanukovych, among others. Pavlovsky continued to work as a Kremlin adviser until 2011, when he was fired after criticizing Putin and then-President Dmitry Medvedev’s “rollover” that allowed Putin to run for a third term. After leaving the Kremlin, Pavlovsky became an outspoken critic of the Russian leadership.