DUSHANBE, October 6, Asia-Plus  -- Ex-chief of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Lebedev was appointed as the new CIS Executive Secretary, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said at the CIS summit on Friday.

Lebedev replaced Vladimir Rushailo.

According to bio data of Lebedev given by Itar-Tass, General Lebedev was born in Uzbekistan on April 9, 1948.

He is a graduate of the Chernigov branch of the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, the Kiev School of KGB, the Soviet KGB Institute, and the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy.

Lebedev is fluent in German and English.

He worked for the Chernigov branch of the Kiev Polytechnic Institute and was a secretary of the Chernigov city committee of the Young Communist League (KOMSOMOL) in 1970.

Lebedev was a conscript of the Kiev military district in 1971-1972.

He became a KGB officer in 1973, joined the Foreign Intelligence Service in 1975, and had numerous foreign missions in Germany.

In 1998-2000 Lebedev was an official representative of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service in the United States.

He was put in charge of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service on May 20, 2000, and became a member of the Russian Security Council in the same year.

Lebedev is married with two sons.