Kremlin image-maker turned critic Gleb Pavlovsky dies at 71

Gleb Pavlovsky, a Soviet-era dissident who served as a Kremlin political consultant helping burnish President Vladimir Putin's image, has died, his family said Monday. He was 71.

Gleb Pavlovsky, a Soviet-era dissident who served as a Kremlin political consultant helping burnish President Vladimir Putin's image, has died, his family said Monday. He was 71.

Pavlovsky worked as a top adviser for the Kremlin for 15 years and was widely seen as one of the key architects of Russia's post-Soviet political system.

Pavlovsky's death was reported by his family on his messaging app channel. The announcement said he died Sunday at a Moscow hospice following a grave illness. Funeral arrangements weren't immediately announced.

Pavlovsky was born in the Black Sea port of Odesa and became engaged in dissident activities as a university student.

He was arrested in 1982 and later that year was sentenced to three years of internal exile. During his trial, Pavlovsky pleaded guilty to the charges and testified against some of his colleagues, a move that some members of the dissident movement have never forgiven.

After serving his sentence, Pavlovsky returned to Moscow in 1985 and became an active member of the pro-democracy camp spawned by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms.

After the 1991 Soviet collapse, he began working as a political consultant and in 1996 he helped stage a successful re-election campaign for Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin.