Alexander Borodai lives in Moscow. He is a son of Yury Borodai, a scholar in philosophy. Both his father and Borodai himself were "friendly" with Lev Gumilyov, a Eurasianist philosopher.
Career and education
Borodai has a degree in philosophy from Moscow State University. In 1994 he worked for the RIA Novosti as a military correspondent during the First Chechen War. Since 1996 he works for the newspaper. Since 1998 he has worked as a "political technologist" specialising in elections. Since 2001 he has headed the consulting business "Sotsiomaster" specializing in crisis management. Borodai and the future military commander of the Donetsk People's Republic Igor Strelkov were close associates of the controversial Russian businessmen Konstantin Malofeev. According to Russian media, he was appointed as a deputy director of Russian FSB State Security in 2002 at the age of 35 , when he held the rank of major general – Borodai dismissed this as a hoax. He currently has a consultancy in Moscow and worked at a major investment fund.
Nationalism
In the 1990s he edited a Russian newspaper , run by journalist Alexander Prokhanov. In December 2011, Borodai and Prokhanov co-founded the "patriotic" Web TV channel Den-TV. Den-TV's programming has regularly included Konstantin Dushenov, who has previously been imprisoned for anti-semitic incitement.
Politics
Borodai refers to himself as "professional consultant" with expertise in ethnic conflict. “I have resolved all kinds of complicated conflict situations,” he told journalists. In 2002, according to the Moscow Times newspaper, he also dismissed reports that he had been appointed a deputy director of Russia’s Federal Security Service as a hoax arranged for his 30th birthday.
Crimea
Borodai worked as an advisor to appointed Crimea governor Sergei Aksyonov. Borodai claims he worked as a “political strategist” during the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and states that the political forces that facilitated the takeover are the same as those active in the Donetsk Republic: "Naturally the people who set up these popular movements and were the initiators are the same people, they are connected to each other... So when I finished the work in Crimea I automatically... came here to work in southeast Ukraine.”
Donetsk
Following the 2014 Donetsk status referendum; on 16 May 2014 Borodai was appointed Prime Minister of the Donetsk People's Republic. On 28 July 2014 Borodai left Donetsk for Russia and returned On 4 August. In a press conference in Donetsk on 7 August 2014 Borodai announced his resignation as Prime Minister. In this press conference he stated “I came here as a crisis manager, a start-upper, if you want. I’ve managed to achieve a lot in the past several months, the DPR has been established as a state”. As Prime Minister he was replaced by Alexander Zakharchenko. Borodai stated he would become Zakharchenko's Deputy Prime Minister. He further stated in the 7 August 2014 press conference that he believed a "native Muscovite" like him should not lead the Donetsk People's Republic. In 2017 Boroday claimed that Zakharchenko succeeded him in a Russian government effort "to try to show the West that the uprising was a grassroots phenomenon".
