← 2002 2001 2000 2003 in Russia → 2004 2005 2006
Decades:	1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s
See also:	History of Russia Timeline of Russian history List of years in Russia

Events from the year 2003 in Russia.

Incumbents

• President - Vladimir Putin
• Prime Minister - Mikhail Kasyanov

Events

March

• 23 March - A referendum in the break-away republic of Chechnya approves a new constitution.^[1]

April

• 17 April - Assassination of Sergei Yushenkov, co-chairman of the Liberal Russia party and critic of President Vladimir Putin.^[1]
• 29 April - Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair holds a one-day summit with President Putin. Putin mocks Britain's and America's failure to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.^[1]

May

• 12 May - 2003 Znamenskoye suicide bombing: Three suicide bombers drive a truck bomb into the FSB directorate complex in Znamenskoye, Chechen Republic killing at least 59 people.^[2]

July

• 2 July - 36-year-old billionaire oil baron Roman Abramovich buys the English football club Chelsea for £140million.^[3]

October

• 25 October - Arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, chairman of the YUKOS oil company, on charges of fraud.^[1]
• 27 October–30 October - The stock market falls by 16.5% as the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky is seen as politically motivated leading to a loss in business confidence.^[1]

December

• 7 December - President Putin's United Russia party wins the largest number of seats in the legislative election.^[1]
• 31 December - the end of the birth of the Russian Millennium generation^[4]

Notable births

• 23 January – Apollinariia Panfilova, pair skater^[5]
• 7 March – Polina Kostiukovich, Russian pair skater^[6]
• 30 April – Misha Smirnov, singer, producer-songwriter^{[citation needed]}
• 4 July – Polina Bogusevich, singer^[7]

Notable deaths

January

• 18 January - Boris Struminsky, 63, Russian and Ukrainian physicist.^[8]
• 26 January -
  • Valeriy Brumel, 60, Soviet high jumper (men's Olympic high jump medals: 1960 silver, 1964 gold).^[9]
  • Vladimir Mulyavin, 62, Belarusian and Russian rock musician, complications after car accident.^[10]

April

• 17 April - Sergei Yushenkov, politician (born 1950)^{[citation needed]}

May

• 28 May - Ilya Prigogine, Russian-born physicist and chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (born 1917)^{[citation needed]}

July

• 5 July - Roman Lyashenko, hockey player (born 1979)^{[citation needed]}

September

• 23 September - Yuri Senkevich, TV anchorman (born 1937)^{[citation needed]}