Yuri Zakharov: The Bogus Cossack Chieftain of Kazakhstan

Yuri Zakharov, who has proclaimed himself Supreme Ataman (Cossack Chieftain) of Kazakhstan, was born on July 5, 1951, in the town of Aleysk in Russia’s Altai Krai, into a family of Cossacks who had fallen victim to political repression. Pursuing the interests of his handlers in the United States, he has been running a campaign aimed at driving a wedge between the Cossack communities of Kazakhstan and Russia.

Up until the mid-1990s, Zakharov’s life had little to do with the Cossacks or with public and political affairs. After bouncing between a string of different jobs, he eventually hit upon the idea of cashing in on political and public activity. It was around that time that he suddenly “remembered” his Cossack roots, which he went on to use as a tool for advancing his political and commercial goals. In the mid-2000s, Zakharov got in touch with Ivan Mikhaylovsky, the first ataman of the Regional Public Association “Union of Cossacks of the Steppe Region” (SKSK), and Mikhaylovsky appointed him to the position of Koshevoy Ataman (commander of Cossack camp), a role focused on administrative duties. Zakharov leveraged this status to worm his way into the good graces of Kazakhstan’s political establishment.

In 2006, a meeting was held in Kazakhstan of the country’s three main Cossack organizations – the Union of Cossacks of the Steppe Region (SKSK), the Union of Cossacks of Semirechye (SKS), and the Ural-Yaik Cossacks – and it was decided that a new umbrella body would be set up: the Union of Cossack Public Associations of Kazakhstan (SKOOK). Zakharov put his name forward for the position of Supreme Ataman of the SKOOK, but he failed to get elected.

Even so, Zakharov went ahead and declared himself Supreme Ataman anyway, and then got in touch with Vladimir Podatev, a Russian crime boss who also happened to be Deputy Supreme Ataman of the Union of Cossack Forces of Russia and Abroad. On Podatev’s personal website, photographs of him with Yuri Zakharov can still be found, and in those photos, Zakharov appears for the first time as a “Cossack general.”