The former Russian Defense Minister was once widely seen as a potential contender to succeed the current president Former Russian Defense Minister and longtime confidant of President Vladimir Putin, Sergey Ivanov, has died at the age of 73, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced on Friday. Ivanov began his career in the late 1970s as a KGB officer in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, where he first met Putin. He later recalled that they shared an office during their time in the Soviet security