Leonid Grigoryevich Ivashov (born August 31, 1943) is a vice president of the Academy on Geopolitical Affairs and former Joint Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces

Armed Forces of the Russian Federation

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are the military services of Russia, established after the break-up of the Soviet Union. On 7 May 1992 Boris Yeltsin signed a decree establishing the Russian Ministry of Defence and placing all Soviet Armed Forces troops on the territory of the RSFSR...

, general-colonel.

Leonid Ivashov was born in Kyrgyz SSR and graduated from Tashkent

Tashkent

Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...

 military school in 1964.

Between 1976 and 1984 he worked as a senior aid to the Soviet Minister of Defense Dmitriy Ustinov

Dmitriy Ustinov

Dmitriy Feodorovich Ustinov was Minister of Defense of the Soviet Union from 1976 until his death.-Early life:Dimitry Feodorovich Ustinov was born in a working-class family in Samara. During the civil war, when hunger became intolerable, his sick father went to Samarkand, leaving Dimitry as head...

. In 1987 he became chief of the department for general affairs in the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

’s Ministry of Defence.

During the 1990s was in charge of military co-operation between members of the Commonwealth of Independent States

Commonwealth of Independent States

The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....

 as chief of the military cooperation department at the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Defence.

After his retirement in 2001 Leonid Ivashov became an outspoken critic of and writes extensively on military affairs and geopolitics.

Leonid Ivashov is a member of the anti-imperialist conference Axis for Peace

Axis for Peace

Axis for Peace was a conference organised by Voltaire Network to"gather political and intellectual personalities... already committed against the war logic and who wish to install a permanent structure that could make the voice of peace be heard."...

.

He was reportedly involved in the Foundations of Geopolitics

Foundations of Geopolitics

The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia is a geopolitical book by Alexander Dugin. The book has had a large influence within the Russian military, police, and statist foreign policy elites and is used as a textbook in the General Staff Academy of Russian military.-Use:The...

, a book by Alexander Dugin.