Since April 2021, he is a senior fellow at the non-governmental organization Center for Security Policy, which is based out of Washington, D.C. in the United States.

In April 2022, Illarionov declared in a news interview that change in the Kremlin would happen "sooner or later" given that "it is absolutely impossible to have any positive future for Russia with the current political regime.

From 1993 to 1994 Illarionov was the head of the Analysis and Planning Group of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and the Government of Russia, Viktor Chernomyrdin, after which he went on to become the vice-president of the Leontyev International Social and Economic Research Centre, and director of the Moscow division.

[2] On 12 April 2000, Illarionov was invited by Vladimir Putin to be his senior economic adviser and in May 2000 he became the personal representative of the Russian president (sherpa) in the G8.

Eurobank was one of the most important finance centers of the Soviet Union and Russia for foreign intelligence operations of the KGB and GRU.

[5][a] On 3 January 2005 Illarionov resigned from his position as presidential representative to the G8 because of the government troops' storm of the Beslan school on 3 September 2004 leading to death of 333 children, their parents and teachers.

[8] On 27 December 2005, Illarionov offered his resignation as economic adviser in protest against the stealing of billions of dollars by Putin's inner circle from the Russian state via the IPO of state-owned company Rosneft.

Illarionov was openly critical to such elements of the Russian economic policy as the Yukos affair, increasing influence of government officials on private sector and civil rights, as well as the Kremlin pressure on Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute.

"[13] In October 2006, the same week as Putin declared the Assassination of Anna Politkovskaya "abominable in its brutality", Illarionov took up a position with the Cato Institute.

[21] This followed on from a 17 November 2017 article that he had co-authored along with Anders Åslund, Daniel Fried and Andrei Piontkovsky for the Atlantic Council entitled "How to Identify the Kremlin Ruling Elite and its Agents".

[26] Illarionov has also stated that Moscow's intervention into Georgia scared away investors and was in part responsible for the 2008 Russian financial crisis.

[28] On 4 February 2014, before the Russian intervention in Crimea, Illarionov predicted that Vladimir Putin was going to implement a military operation to effectively establish political control over Ukraine.

[32] In November 2018, Andrey Illarionov said in the chat of the Ukrainian portal GlavRed that the dissolution of Russian Federation is inevitable which is a natural process for multinational empires.

In April 2022, Illarionov remarked during an interview with the BBC News agency that if Western countries "would try to implement a real embargo on oil and gas exports from Russia", then, in response, "probably within a month or two, Russian military operations in Ukraine, probably will be ceased, will be stopped".

[1] Illarionov additionally declared that change in the Kremlin would happen "sooner or later" given that "it is absolutely impossible to have any positive future for Russia with the current political regime".