Prior to this he had been appointed as federal security minister for counterintelligence by President Boris Yeltsin in 1994, a position from which he resigned in 1995 as a consequence of the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis.

Stepashin was born in Port-Arthur, Kvantun Oblast, USSR (now Lüshunkou, China) on 2 March 1952.

He is a Doctor of Law, Professor, and has a rank of the State Advisor on Justice of the Russian Federation.

Yeltsin made it fairly clear when he appointed him Prime Minister that Stepashin would only hold the position temporarily[citation needed], and he was replaced in August 1999 by future president Vladimir Putin.

Stepashin had, for example, presented leaders of the separatist regime in Chechnya with monogrammed pistols, praised the activities of the religious extremists who had taken over several Dagestani villages, and had proclaimed publicly: "We can afford to lose Dagestan!".