He is in his third marriage and has six children.

After graduating from Moscow Forestry Engineering College and studying in the Moscow State University he began work at the Research Institute of Control Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences (RAN), where he worked for more than thirty years. Boris Berezovsky is a Professor and a Corresponding Member of the RAN; he is the author of more than 100 research papers on optimization theory.

In 1989 Berezovsky set up one of the first private companies in Russia (LogoVAZ) and started his business career. His interests were varied from applied programming, car manufacturing and trading, mass media and airlines to oil and aluminum.

In 1992 Berezovsky set up “Triumph” the first Russian non-state charitable foundation in support of Russian culture.

In 1996 Berezovsky initiated the business community`s support of president Yeltsin’s re-election.

In 1997-1998 Boris Berezovsky was Deputy Secretary of the Security Council under the Yeltsin`s government. Mr. Berezovsky was directly involved in signing a peace agreement with Chechnya in May 1997. In 1998-1999 he was elected Executive Secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

In the autumn of 1999 Berezovsky started a political movement ( “Unity”) in support of the presidential election campaign of Putin on the understanding that Putin would continue Yeltsin’s course of democratic reforms.

From 1999 to 2000 he was an independent MP in the Russian State Duma representing Karachayevo-Cherkesiya.

In summer 2000 Berezovsky, as a sign of his serious concern over Putin`s increasing authoritarianism, gave up his Duma Deputy’s mandate and in the autumn of the same year he left Russia as he was suffering persecution in the form of falsified charges.

In 2001 Berezovsky set up The Foundation for Civil Liberties in New York to support democratic changes in the post-soviet republics. The Foundation has branches in Ukraine and Latvia. Before 2006 there was a Foundation Branch in Russia as well, though it was closed when a new anti-constitutional law was adopted, limiting the activity of non-governmental organizations.

In 2002, together with S.Yushenkov and V.Golavlyev, MPs of the Russian State Duma, he set up the political party “Liberal Russia” opposing Putin’s regime. In 2002-2003 Golavlyev and Yushenkov were assassinated and the party was banned.

In 2003 Berezovsky was granted political asylum in Great Britain.

Boris Berezovsky’s political philosophy can be seen in multiple publications and interviews; the most concentrated exposition may be found in “A Manifesto for Russian Liberalism”.

Mr. Berezovsky was a close friend of Alexander Litvinenko. In 1998 a group of FSB officers led by Alexander Litvinenko held a press-conference to make public an FSB plan to kill Berezovsky.

Berezovsky’s Foundation for Civil Liberties supported Alexander Litvinenko’s activity aimed at disclosing the criminal actions of the KGB and its successor FSB.