Konstantin Chernenko
During his long career, Sergey Afanasyev dealt directly with top Soviet leaders, including Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko, Yuri Andropov and Mikhail Gorbachev, discussing with them and getting funding for both space and defence programmes and projects. He was also a close friend of Boris Yeltsin, who he knew since Yeltsin was the head of the Yekaterinburg regional Communist Party Committee. Afanasyev was elected as deputy of the Congress of Peoples Deputies from the Yekaterinburg region.