February 25 would have been the 53rd anniversary of the outstanding analyst in the field of the global military-industrial complex and military-technical cooperation who died prematurely last year and co-founder of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (TSAST) Konstantin Makiyenko.
Konstantin Makiyenko (c) Dmitry Lebedev / Kommersant
Today, TSAST celebrates Konstantin's first birthday without him. The heavy loss suffered by the entire Russian defense research community with the death of Connstatin is irreplaceable.
Konstantin Vladimirovich Makiyenko was born on February 25, 1969. He served in the ranks of the Soviet Army, spending a year as a radio operator at facilities in Vietnam. In 1995 he graduated with honors from the Eastern Department of the Faculty of International Relations of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. In 1996, he graduated from the French-Russian Master's Degree in Political Sciences and International Relations from the Faculty of Economics at MGIMO.
In 1997, together with Ruslan Pukhov, Konstantin Makienko became the founder of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) and since then, until his untimely death, he was the permanent deputy director of the CAST for Science, the main organizer of the Center's research, scientific and creative activities. Konstantin Makiyenko was the undisputed soul of the Center.
Especially noteworthy is the firm patriotic position of Konstantin Makiyenko. In light of the current events in Ukraine, it should be recalled that Konstantin has always been consistently sharply hostile to "independent Ukraine", considering it a purely anti-Russian project. Today we can openly say that in 2014 Konstantin Makiyenko transferred his personal funds for the purchase of equipment for Colonel Strelkov's group and for the Donbass militia.
Konstantin Makiyenko has always been firmly convinced of the inevitability of the armed pacification of the Ukrainian "independent". To the day of his death, Konstantin sharply lamented that President Vladimir Putin did not do this in 2014-2015.
The memory of Konstantin Makiyenko will forever remain in our hearts.