Valentin Falin

Valentin Mikhaylovich Falin (Baлeнтин Mиxaйлoвич Фaлин) (3 April 1926 – 22 February 2018 ) was a Soviet diplomat and politician.

Early life
Falin was born in Leningrad. He graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1950.

Career
From 1951 to 1958 he worked at the USSR Foreign Ministry. From 1971 to 1978 he was the Ambassador of the USSR to the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1978 he was appointed First Deputy Chief of the International Information Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a post he left in January 1983 for personal reasons. From 1982 to 1986 he was a political observer, then editor and chief editor in the newspaper Izvestia.

On March 10, 1986, Falin was elected by the Council of Sponsors of the Novosti Press Agency to the position of chairman of the APN board. In 1988–1991 he was the Chief of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Following the failed 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, he left government service.

In 1992 to 2000 he worked at Institut für Friedensforschung und Sicherheitspolitik an der Universität Hamburg in Germany. He returned to Russia in 2000 and lived in Moscow.