The strongmen behind Vladimir Putin

At the meeting of the Russian Security Council last Monday, not only was the bumbling of Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, striking, but also the contented calm of two other men. One was the rarely publicized Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB secret service, the other his predecessor in that position, Nikolai Patrushev, now the powerful secretary of the Security Council. Both are Putin’s allies from the very beginning and are considered the main co-architects of his repressive policies.

Their performance underlined once again that Putin does not determine Russia’s course on his own, but that he is highly dependent on a small group of friends, also known as the siloviki (strong men). Of those friends, Bortnikov and Patrushev are the most important. They are regarded as Putin’s intimates and are the only ones who have daily contact with him and exercise substantial influence over his policies, insofar as they do not help determine those policies themselves.

Brain of Putin’s regime

Alexander Bortnikov

Bortnikov served with the KGB in Leningrad since 1973 and soon rose in that service, where he met the equally old Vladimir Putin. In 2004 he brought him to Moscow. There he first headed the FSB’s economic department, which oversees the ins and outs of business. In that position, he would have amassed a fortune by extorting profitable companies. In 2008, Bortnikov became head of the FSB. Since then, he has been regarded as the mastermind of Putin’s regime. He is also the one who daily provides Putin with information about the situation at home and abroad and about the power struggle within the Kremlinelite.

Bortnikov is not only responsible for the suppression of the opposition after the massive protests of 2011-2012, but also most likely ordered the assassination of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in 2015, when he threatened to come out with revelations about the involvement of the Russian security services. in Ukraine. According to research forum Bellingcat, the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny with the nerve gas novichok can also be attributed to his service.

During the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine, he sent his agents to Kiev to assist pro-Russian President Yanukovych. During their deployment, they allegedly shot and killed dozens of demonstrators, according to the Ukrainian security service SBU. Bortnikov caused a small riot in 2017 when he whitewashed the Stalin terror in an interview. According to the US, he also had the ‘death list’ drawn up of Ukrainian politicians who should be eliminated once Russia has Ukraine on its knees.

Ideologist and greatest hawk

Nikolai Patroesjev

Patrushev is Bortnikov’s predecessor as head of the FSB. He is known as the largest hawk in Putin’s environment. He was also trained at the KGB, where he also became friends with Putin. When he became prime minister in 1999, he brought his comrade to Moscow to put him in charge of the FSB. According to British justice, Patrushev had the defected FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko poisoned with polonium-210 in London in 2006.

As head of the Security Council, Patrushev is the main architect of Putin’s 2021 security strategy. In it, the West is identified as the enemy whose decadent morality seeks to destroy Russia’s ‘cultural sovereignty’ and ‘traditional values’. This ideological document, drenched in a revanchist sauce, is the most important starting point for waging the current war.

Eliminates opponents

Alexander Bastrykin

Bastrykin, the head of the Russian Commission of Inquiry, is a type of serious crime prosecutor that falls directly under the president. Bastrykin also knows Putin from the time of their law studies in Leningrad. Since his appointment in 2006, he has been tasked with taking out the regime’s political opponents, which he does very well. Earlier this week, he tried to justify “military intervention” against Ukraine by spreading a rumor that Ukrainian saboteurs were trying to penetrate Russia to carry out attacks.

war hiter

Sergei Naryshkin

The head of the foreign intelligence service Sergei Naryshkin, who was beaten mercilessly during Putin’s Security Council session for slipping, is also a close acquaintance from Leningrad. As a diplomat he spied in Brussels, among other places, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union he returned to his hometown to work for Putin. In 2004, he brought him to Moscow, where as his oil man he was used, among other things, as chairman of the parliament and as chief of the presidential staff. As Speaker of Parliament, he gagged the opposition through legislation. From 2009 to 2012, he chaired a committee that was tasked with cleaning up the stains of the Russian past. The fact that Stalin got a ‘positive’ press in Russia is partly due to him. By constantly pointing out the danger posed by Ukraine’s ‘neo-Nazis’ as chief of foreign intelligence, he is one of Putin’s main warmongers.

Minister of Defence

Sergei Shoigue

Then there is the energetic Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu. He made a name for himself with decisive action as Minister of Emergency Situations under Liberal President Yeltsin. After 2000, he built a friendship with Putin, with whom he regularly went into Siberian nature. In 2012, Shoigu became Defense Minister. In that capacity, he was responsible for the modernization of the army. In 2014, he led the annexation of Crimea and the military support of separatists in eastern Ukraine. In 2018, he was responsible for the massive bombing of the Russian air force in Syria, which allowed President Assad to quell the insurgency in his country. Shoigu is leading the current invasion of Ukraine. To what extent Shoigu is a hawk or merely an executor of his master’s orders is unclear.

loyal friends

Igor Setshin and Yuri Kovalchuk

In the background, some other friends from Putin’s days as deputy mayor in St. Petersburg play a role. They all became billionaires during Putin’s second term as president. Together they control 50 percent of the Russian economy. Most important of these are Igor Setsjin (above), boss of state energy company Rosneft, and Yuri Kovalchuk (below), director of the Rossiya bank.

Rosneft boss Setsjin is the man behind the 2005 confiscation and partition of the oil and gas empire of disgraced tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was subsequently jailed for 13 years. According to British investigative journalist Catherine Belton, Setshin, who has a KGB past in Africa, is at times a rival to Putin. As director of investment bank Rossiya, physicist Yuri Kovalchuk is the spider in Putin’s financial empire and one of his best friends. He manages the private assets of his friends. Putin’s is estimated at about $200 billion. It is not without reason that the Rossija bank has been paralyzed by Western sanctions since last week.

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