Putin Ally Oversees Primate Research Aimed at Extending Human Life

Mikhail Kovalchuk told reporters in Moscow on Nov. 10 that research on long-lived primates could lay the groundwork “for creating a regulatory system for extending” human life. He spoke on the sidelines of the Kurchatov Genomic Forum, which ran Nov. 9–10 as part of a wider conference on nature-like technologies.

The remarks, first circulated widely by Bloomberg and also reported by TASS, come from the physicist who heads the National Research Center “Kurchatov Institute,” one of Russia’s largest state science complexes.

Screening Aging Monkeys

“We are now screening elderly monkeys to look at all stages of aging,” Kovalchuk said, according to TASS. Scientists are examining animals aged 18 to more than 30 years, running biochemical and structural tests as well as studies of their blood vessels and brains.

“Primates are the closest example to us,” he said. “This is the basis for creating a regulatory system for extending” lifespan.

A Colony of More Than 7,000

Kovalchuk said the institute’s breeding facilities house more than 7,000 monkeys of 22 species, including what he called a unique collection of animals older than 20 to 30 years. The 7,000 figure describes the colony, not a confirmed head count of animals enrolled in the aging study itself.

The Kurchatov Institute has also teamed up with the Petrovsky Russian Research Center of Surgery to create a bank of blood samples from long-lived primates. Konstantin Kotenko, the surgery center’s director, said at the same forum that scientists would use the samples to study how aging works, the independent outlet Agentstvo reported, according to Meduza.

Putin’s Interest in Longevity

President Vladimir Putin, who turned 74 in October, has long shown an interest in extending human life. He was born on Oct. 7, 1952.

In September 2025, a hot microphone at a military parade in Beijing picked up his conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The two leaders were in the Chinese capital for commemorations and talks.

“With biotech, organs can be replaced endlessly… people could even reach immortality,” Putin said. Xi replied that people “rarely lived past 70 before,” that at 70 “you’re still a child,” and that “some predict people might live to 150 this century.”

A Kremlin Science Ally

Kovalchuk, like his brother, the billionaire banker Yuri Kovalchuk, belongs to Putin’s inner circle and is widely described as the president’s informal adviser on science, particularly genetics.

In 2024, Meduza reported that Mikhail Kovalchuk may have been one of the main forces behind a state anti-aging project. A source close to the Kremlin, speaking to Meduza, attributed the project’s creation to “an obsession amplified by lobbying.”