Putin appoints Igor Levitin presidential aide

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree appointing Igor Levitin as presidential aide and relieving him from the previous post, the Kremlin press service reported on Monday. Before the Monday’s appointment Levitin worked as a presidential adviser. Igor Levitin was born on February 21, 1952, in the settlement of Tsebrikovo, Odessa Region, the former Soviet republic of Ukraine. In 1973 he graduated from the Leningrad Higher Military College of Railway Troops and Millitary Communications and graduated from the Higher Military Academy of Rear Services and Transport in 1983. From 1970 he passed the military service in the Soviet Armed Forces: in the Odessa military district, the Southern Group of Forces (Hungary) and in the Trans-Baikal military district. In 1983-1985 he worked as a military commandant of a railway line and the railway station of Urgal on the Baikal-Amur Railway Mainline. In 1985-1994 he worked as a military commandant of the railway line and then as a deputy chief of the department of military communications on the Moscow Railway. In 1994 he retired from the Armed Forces and launched a business. In 1995-1996 he worked in the forwarding company Fenix Trans Service in Odessa, in 1996-2004 he worked at the closed joint stock company Severstaltrans, one of the largest freight transit companies in Russia, and occupied the post of the deputy general director of the company from 1998. From March to May 2004 he worked as the Russian minister of transport and communications. From May 2004 to May 2012 - the Russian transport minister. From May 21, 2012 - an adviser of the Russian president. He is awarded with the 3rd and 4th degrees of the Order of Merit to the Fatherland, the 2nd Degree Stolypin Medal and the Medal For the Development of Railways.