Overview

• State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin declared in a plenary session that Finance Minister Anton Siluanov would not receive a Nobel Prize.
• Volodin criticized the Nobel Committee as politically driven and said it rewards those who betray or undermine states.
• He invoked Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1990 Peace Prize, arguing Gorbachev should have been removed from party leadership the day he received it.
• Referencing recent awards, including the 2025 Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, Volodin used combative rhetoric and named foreign leaders such as Friedrich Merz, Volodymyr Zelensky and Emmanuel Macron.
• Siluanov replied that he does not seek a Nobel and needs parliamentary support, as the Duma approved in a first reading a bill to adjust 2025 budget parameters.