Sergey Brilyov
Sergey Brilev | |
|---|---|
 Brilev in 2015 | |
| Born | 12 July 1972 Havana, Cuba |
| Citizenship | Russia, United Kingdom |
| Occupation(s) | TV anchor, public figure |
| Spouse | Irina Konstantinova |
| Children | 1 |
Sergey Borisovich Brilev (Russian: Сергей Борисович Брилёв) (born 1972) is a Russian television anchor on the state-owned TV channel Rossiya.[1] He is a senior executive at VGTRK, the Kremlin-controlled media holding company.[2]
Early life
Sergey Brilev was born on 24 July 1972 in Havana, Cuba, where his father worked as an interpreter for Soviet civil aircraft exporters. His early life was spent between Cuba, Ecuador, Uruguay (where his parents were posted with Soviet trade missions) and Moscow.[3]
He attended Moscow school No. 109, known as the "Yamburg school".
He read international journalism at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). Brilev took a sabbatical in 1990–1991 to attend the Montevideo Institute of Foreign Languages (Uruguay). He briefly studied management at the University of Westminster in London.
Career
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During 1990–1993, he was a correspondent-intern at the Science and Education department of Komsomolskaya Pravda daily newspaper.
While studying in Uruguay (1990–1991), he was a columnist at the Uruguayan newspapers La República and El Observador Económico. He also started his career on TV as a co-producer of a special report "SODRE" at TV Canal 5 (Uruguay) on ethnic Russians residing in the depths of Uruguay's inner Río Negro Department.
During 1993–1995, he was a special correspondent of the foreign desk of The Moscow News newspaper, writing mostly about Latin America. He became the first correspondent to visit Cuba after a ban was imposed on The Moscow News in connection with refugees leaving the country on rafts and was summoned as an expert by Russia's Duma (the lower house of parliament). Simultaneously he was Moscow contributing correspondent of El Observador Económico and the Argentinian newspaper La Razón.
He was also the author of a series of reports for the programme International Panorama for national television along with journalist Dmitry Yakushkin and for Formula 730 programme, after which he received an offer to work for the television news programme Vesti.
In 1995 and 1996, Brilev was a special correspondent of the daily news programme Vesti broadcast by TV channel Rossiya during the First Chechen War and the hostage crisis in Budennovsk. For the five years from 1996, he was the London correspondent of Vesti.[4] During that period, he became a regular panellist with Sky News and the BBC (e.g. the Europe Direct programme), he subsequently divided his time between Moscow and London.
In 2001, Brilev accepted an offer from the head of Russian television Oleg Dobrodeyev to become a presenter of the Vesti programme. His first day as presenter was September 11, 2001. Brilev had been due to start work on 17 September, but was called in to cover the attacks on U. S. targets live on air because of his knowledge of English and international realities. He was on the air for almost the entire day, this instantly made him one of the Russia's top presenters.
From 2001–2003, he anchored the evening prime time daily news Vesti. 2003–2007: anchor of Sunday weekly review Vesti nedeli ("Weekly news"). Since 2008, he has been author and anchor of his own political programme Vesti v subbotu ("Saturday news with Sergey Brilev").
In 2002, 2006 and 2018, he was named the best TV news and current affairs presenter by the Russian TV Academy which gave him Russia's top television award TEFI in those years.[5]
One of Brilev's specialities has been interviewing global leaders and their top functionaries. E. g. Brilev has interviewed such Americans as George W. Bush,[6] Barack Obama,[7] Colin Powell,[8] Condoleezza Rice,[9] John Kerry,[10] Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Britain's Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Boris Johnson, Robin Cook, Jack Straw and David Miliband, China's President Xi, former and future French Presidents Valéry Giscard d'Éstaing, Nicolas Sarkozy and Emmanuel Macron, and Russia's Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, Evgeny Primakov, Sergey Ivanov and Sergey Lavrov.
Brilev has been host of entertainment TV shows such as the Russian edition of the French adventure show Fort Boyard (2002 season) and an entertainment quiz show "Knowledge is Power".
In 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2018 he acted as the official co-commentator of the live ceremony of the inauguration of the President of the Russian Federation, along with Channel One's Ekaterina Andreyeva, with whom he also anchored Putin's early phone-in shows (2002–2007). In 2012–2018, he also paricipated in the annual live broadcast Talk with Dmitry Medvedev.
In 2013, Brilev co-founded the Bering-Bellinghausen Institute for the Americas (IBBA),[11] a non-governmental organisation pledged to foster dialogue between the Commonwealth of Independent States and Latin America. For his contribution to Uruguayan-Russian relations, Brilev was awarded the silver medal of "visitante ilustre" (a form of honorary citizenship for foreigners) of Montevideo.
Brilev's books include Fidel. Football. Falklands and Forgotten Allies about small countries fighting in WW2 on the Allies' side (which in 2016 became the basis of his Ph.D. at his alma mater, the MGIMO).
He is the president of the Global Energy Association which operates Global Energy Prize.
Views and controversy
Russia's anti-establishment critic Alexey Navalny accused Brilev of being a "Putin propagandist", who "never criticises the Kremlin."[2] In 2001, Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation revealed that Brilev holds a British passport.[2][12] He supported the 2020 amendments to Russian constitution, which are said to cement the existing structure of power, but explained that for him the most important part was that parliament will from now participate in the formation the federal government, which was previously composed exclusively by presidential decrees. On the other hand, Brilev openly confronted Putin on the ban of US adoptions of Russian orphans and was the first journalist to ask Putin about the Skripal affair in Salisbury. He has publicly stated that in the past he had often voted for the Russian opposition Yabloko party, but became disillusioned by its weakness. In Latin America, Brilev is known as an active supporter of the Sputnik-V Covid-19 vaccine.
Personal life
Brilev is married to Irina Brileva (née Konstantinova). The couple met in 1989 in Moscow and married in 1998 in London; they have a daughter.
Brilev is on the electoral roll in England.[4] His wife owns a flat in Chiswick, west London, bought for £700,000 in March 2016.[4]
References
- ^ Levy, Clifford J.; Barry, Ellen (8 July 2009). "In Russia, Obama's Star Power Does Not Translate". The New York Times.
- ^ a b c Moscow, Marc Bennetts. "Russia propagandist Sergei Brilev is Briton with flat in Chiswick".
- ^ (in Russian) Сергей Брилев — profile at VGTRK website
- ^ a b c Ungoed-Thomas, Jon (12 March 2022). "Putin propagandist news host has British home and citizenship". The Observer. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
- ^ (in Russian) Брилев Сергей Борисович — profile at TEFI website
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2951502.stm
- ^ https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/interview-with-sergey-brilev-rossiya-tv
- ^ https://2001-2009.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/24084.htm
- ^ https://2001-2009.state.gov/secretary/rm/2007/10/93513.htm
- ^ https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2015/12/250683.htm
- ^ "About institute". Institute Bering-Bellingshausen / IBBA.
- ^ "Russian state TV anchor's British citizenship makes his government 'public council' memberships illegal". Meduza. Retrieved 26 February 2022.
