History of Russia (1721–96) drills on the Russian army, and depriving Russia of a military victory by establishing his sudden alliance with Prussia. Making use of the discontent and fearing for her own position, Peter III's wife, Catherine, deposed her husband in a coup, and her lover's brother, Aleksey Orlov, subsequently murdered him, so in June 1762 Catherine became Catherine II, empress of Russia. Peter the Great had two wives, Yevdokiya Lopukhina (the daughter of a minor noble) and Marfa Skavronskaya (a Lithuanian peasant, renamed Catherine after her conversion to Orthodoxy). Catherine I's rise through Peter I's Table of Ranks from a simple peasant
Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russia) Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russia) The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (MOI, , МВД, Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del, MVD) is the interior ministry of Russia. Its predecessor was founded in 1802 by Alexander I in Imperial Russia. The Ministry is headquartered in Moscow. The current Minister of Internal Affairs is General of Police Vladimir Kolokoltsev, who was the Moscow Police Commissioner between 2009 and 2012. Created by Alexander I on 28 March 1802 in the process of government reforms to replace the aging collegia of Peter the Great, the MVD was one of the most powerful governmental bodies