The President congratulated Mr Primakov on receiving the award and on his 80th birthday.
Yevgeny Primakov is a politician, a public figure, a diplomat, a well-known Orientalist, and a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Between 1991 and 1996, he headed Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, and served as Russia’s foreign minister in 1996–1998, as prime minister in 1998–1999, and as the head of the Russian Federation’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry since 2001.