Feb 15 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin promoted Sergei Ivanov, widely regarded as a leading contender to succeed him next year, to the rank of first deputy prime minister on Thursday .

Here are some key facts about Ivanov:

* He was born on January 31, 1953, into a military family in St Petersburg, then called Leningrad.

* He studied languages at Leningrad University, spent some months living with a family in London and then 20 years in foreign intelligence, and speaks Swedish and English.

* Like Putin, he is a native of St. Petersburg and a former KGB spy. They have known each other since the 1970s.

* In August 1998, Ivanov became deputy director of the FSB domestic security service, one of the KGB's successor bodies. Putin headed the service then.

* He became secretary of the Kremlin's advisory Security Council in November 1999 on Putin's advice. He became defence minister in March 2001. On his appointment he said he backed a "balanced" army, where the country's nuclear shield was maintained, but conventional forces were reformed and improved. * Ivanov has put the military's weight behind the big theme of Putin's presidency: a resurgent Russia. He opened an air base in ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, turning the tide after years of base closures, and has built new military relations with emerging superpowers China and India.

* Ivanov has rejected U.S. arguments for deploying an anti-missile defence system in eastern Europe and insisted Russia would not be drawn into a Cold War-style arms race. He also said Russia would upgrade its own defence systems to make sure its strategic arsenal was not rendered ineffective. * He has repeatedly denied any ambitions for the Kremlin's top job. "That matter does not interest me," he said in 2005. "The president ... has entrusted to me the difficult task of modernising the armed forces."

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