If during the first Chechen war of 1994-96 state security tried to prevent Russia’s turn towards liberal-democratic development, the political tasks of the second war were much more serious: to provoke Russia into a war with Chechnya and, in the ensuing turmoil, to seize power in Russia at the next (2000) presidential elections. elections. The “honor” of inciting war fell to the new director of the FSB, Colonel General Patrushev.

Patrushev was born on July 11, 1951 in Leningrad. In 1974 he graduated from the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute. He was assigned to the institute's design bureau, where he worked as an engineer, but literally a year later, in 1975, he was invited to join the KGB. He graduated from a one-year course at the USSR KGB Higher School. After completing the courses, he served in the Leningrad Directorate, rising from a junior “operator” to the head of the service for combating smuggling and corruption of the KGB Directorate for Leningrad and the region with the rank of colonel. And it was in the 90s in Leningrad that Putin was said to have “exposed” to frauds involving the export of non-ferrous metals to the West in the amount of $93 million. In 1991, Patrushev, out of duty, was simply obliged to develop Putin, since the export of non-ferrous metals abroad and the theft of funds from sales was the line of work of the service to combat smuggling and corruption, headed by Patrushev. This is how Patrushev met the future president.

In June 1992, Patrushev was sent to work independently in Karelia, where he headed the local Counterintelligence Directorate. In 1994, Leningrad resident Stepashin became the director of the FSK, who took Patrushev to Moscow to the position of head of one of the key divisions of Lubyanka - the Internal Security Directorate of the FSK of the Russian Federation. USB FSK - counterintelligence within counterintelligence, department for collecting compromising evidence on FSK employees. The head of the CSS is the most trusted representative of the director of the FSK-FSB and reports personally to the director.

By transferring to Moscow, Stepashin saved Patrushev from a serious scandal. In Karelia, he was caught stealing and smuggling expensive Karelian birch, and the Petrozavodsk prosecutor’s office opened a criminal case into the crime, where Patrushev was initially a witness. During the investigation, however, his guilt as an accomplice was actually proven. It was then that Stepashin transferred Patrushev to Moscow to a very high post. For the prosecutor's office of Karelia, Patrushev became unattainable. The head of the FSB Directorate for the Republic of Karelia, Vasily Ankudinov, who could tell us a lot about the Karelian birch, fortunately for Patrushev, died at the age of 56 on May 21, 2001.

In June 1995, Stepashin was replaced as director of FSK by Mikhail Barsukov. Barsukova in the summer of 1996 - Nikolai Kovalev. But Barsukov and Kovalev do not consider Patrushev their man and do not promote him. Then Vladimir Putin, who by that time headed the Main Control Directorate (GCU) of the president, invites his old acquaintance to the position of first deputy. Patrushev goes to Putin.

The further rapid growth of Patrushev’s career is associated with the rise of Putin. Having become the first deputy head of the Kremlin administration in May 1998, Putin promotes Patrushev to the vacant post of head of the Presidential State Administration. In October of the same year, Patrushev returned to Lubyanka, first as Putin’s deputy, appointed to this position by Yeltsin’s decree on July 25, 1998, and then as first deputy director of the FSB.

On March 29, 1999, Yeltsin appointed Putin as Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, retaining his post as Director of the FSB, and on August 9, 1999, as Prime Minister of Russia. Summing up the first months of his reign, Novaya Gazeta wrote: “Long ago, in a very democratic country, an elderly president handed over the post of Chancellor and Prime Minister to a young, energetic successor. After that, the Reichstag caught fire... Historians have never answered the question of who set it on fire; history has shown who benefited from it.” In Russia, “the aged Guarantor handed over the post of prime minister to a successor who has yet to be democratically elected. Residential buildings immediately exploded, and a new Chechen war began, which is being glorified by the biggest liars.”

Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev was born on July 11, 1951 in Leningrad, in the family of a military sailor. He studied at school 211 in the same class with Boris Gryzlov. He graduated from the instrument engineering department of the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute in 1974, then a year-long advanced training course at the Higher School of the KGB of the USSR with a degree in jurisprudence. He holds the military rank of Army General (awarded in 2001). Doctor of Law.

He has state awards: the title of Hero of the Russian Federation, the Order of Military Merit and 7 medals. He was also awarded orders and medals from a number of foreign countries.

Work history

Until 1991, Nikolai Patrushev was a member of the CPSU.

Nikolai Patrushev came to the state security system shortly after graduating from college, having worked for a very short time as an engineer in a design bureau. Presumably, he was noticed while still a student by those who were supposed to look for suitable personnel for the KGB, and made an offer that he did not refuse.

After the necessary retraining, Patrushev was appointed junior detective, and then very dynamically moved up the career ladder.

By the end of the Soviet period, Patrushev rose to the post of head of the anti-smuggling and corruption service of the KGB department for Leningrad and the region. And in 1992, he headed the regional department of the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation (then the Federal Counterintelligence Service) for Karelia.

In the summer of 1996, the “courtier” Barsukov was replaced at the Lubyanka by professional Nikolai Kovalev, but this did not have a positive effect on Patrushev’s career - he did not enter the “inner circle” of the new boss. And, as they say, Kovalev with a light heart released his “personnel officer” to the Presidential Administration as deputy head of the Main Control Directorate, which was then headed by Patrushev’s fellow countryman Vladimir Putin.

Patrushev replaced Putin as head of the GKU for some time when he moved to Lubyanka, and in early August he received the rank of deputy head of the Administration.

Best of the day

Patrushev joined Putin’s team after a financial default and an acute political crisis, when things became not too comfortable in the Presidential Administration - it was felt that an increasing share of power was flowing into the White House, where Primakov’s government was based.

Returning to Lubyanka, Patrushev became deputy director of the FSB and at the same time head of the economic security department. Vladimir Putin has always “breathed unevenly” about the problems that Patrushev’s department dealt with - even since his St. Petersburg days. And in terms of the general situation, the direction of security work supervised by Patrushev attracted special attention from high management: well-organized economic crime was becoming a factor that seriously hampered the development of the country and undermined social stability.

In the spring of 1999, Patrushev was appointed first deputy director of the FSB with far-reaching prospects.

Nikolai Patrushev became the absolute owner of the Lubyanka on August 17, 1999, immediately after the Duma approved Vladimir Putin as head of government. From that moment, essentially, the formation of Putin’s own team began, which began to grow rapidly, involving long-time associates and colleagues of the prime minister, who was declared Yeltsin’s political heir.

At the time when Patrushev was just beginning to show himself as the head of the FSB, the country was going through difficult moments. In the fall of 1999, houses began to explode in Russian cities. In Ryazan, on September 22, 1999, residents of one of the houses discovered bags of explosives in the basement. Patrushev prevented panic by declaring that these were exercises to test the vigilance of citizens. The tragic events that unfolded in Moscow in October 2002 - the seizure of the Dubrovka Theater Center - made it logical for the head of the FSB to resign (such opinions were expressed). But the president did not make leading security officials “scapegoats.”

After the army in 1999-2000. crushed large military formations of the separatists, the Patrushev department assumed the main responsibility for establishing constitutional order in the Chechen Republic.

In April 2003, Patrushev's powers were significantly expanded due to the fact that the Federal Border Service and the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information were transferred to the FSB. After this, almost all structures of the former KGB (with the exception of the Foreign Intelligence Service and the Federal Security Service) came under the direct leadership of Patrushev, and most of the police units came under his indirect control.

As a result of all the changes that took place, Nikolai Patrushev became, in fact, the curator of the entire sphere of internal security - a kind of “praetorian prefect” of the resurgent Third Roman power. He, as well as Sergei Ivanov (who was in charge of defense and defense industry issues) and Viktor Ivanov (in charge of the most important area of ​​personnel policy) formed the key triad of supporting figures in the personal presidential team.

And on February 16, 2006, Vladimir Putin signed a decree creating a new body to combat terrorism - the National Anti-Terrorism Committee. FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev was appointed head of the new structure. Patrushev's subordinate staff increased by 300 units.

Information about relatives

Widower. His wife Lyudmila (according to the Panorama IAC, she was a doctor) died in 2001, leaving her husband two sons.

Personal life

The FSB director does not talk about his personal life, which is quite logical. It is known that Nikolai Patrushev is raising two sons without a wife.

Hobbies

As befits a law enforcement officer, sports. “Patrushev sincerely loves volleyball, he plays at a decent level, he is sick of our problems,” this is how the former president of the All-Russian Volleyball Federation Valentin Zhukov, who was replaced in this post by the “chief security officer” of Russia Nikolai Patrushev, said about him. He loves to read, good music and the “peculiarities of the national hunt” are also not alien to him.

Enemies

Listing Patrushev’s enemies is like listing the enemies of the security of our state, who can be divided into internal and external. These include those who interfere with the “stable development of the economy” with their “facts of extortion of $5 million by representatives of the commercial structure “System Business Design” from the shareholders of the Podolsk Electromechanical Plant company for the termination of bankruptcy proceedings of this large strategic enterprise.” The enemies of security and Patrushev personally are terrorist groups that explode, capture, and seek to gain access to biological weapons.

Companions

The most important friend in all respects (as far as this is appropriate in relation to the head of state) is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who consistently promoted the “silovik” up the career ladder.

Weaknesses and shortcomings

As a general rule, the main person responsible for the security of the country should not have shortcomings, and Patrushev, according to the general rule, fully meets this condition. But, like any “responsible” person, he has a weakness for loud phrases like “The FSB prevented 70 acts of sabotage and terrorism” without specifying during what period these very terrorist attacks were prevented. Or: “The FSB has its own recipe for fighting black cash,” as it turned out, “the main barrier to the flow of unaccounted cash can be cash register equipment...” - a truly shocking statement.

Strengths

Those who had the opportunity to communicate with Patrushev in his young years remembered him as a very energetic, purposeful person, with a good brain, competent and very efficient. At the same time, he was not a “closed-minded service worker”; he had a fairly wide range of hobbies (books, music, hunting). He went in for sports, as befits a law enforcement officer.

According to some colleagues from the FSB, Patrushev is the person “to whom there is no need to explain who is who in the regions, he certainly knows who to imprison and why to imprison.”

Patrushev turned out to be a man capable enough to creatively develop the idea of ​​a kind of new nobility of KGB origin. If we put aside the details (Orthodoxy, a special path and a brilliant empire in the near future), its essence is this: 1) a new class of nobles needs support; 2) only by being in power will this class be able to support the president.

It is clear that this logic is the opposite of the attitude towards intelligence officers in democratic countries. There they are civil servants who are responsible for their work.

As a result, each new terrorist attack, each new shock does not shake Patrushev’s chair, but, on the contrary, adds points to him. All these tragedies mean: the intelligence services are still too weak, too poor and too humiliated. We must fight to improve their lives.

Until now, Patrushev has managed to convince the president of this. Actually, only this can explain the strange tendency that after another terrorist attack, the leadership of the FSB is not punished, but rewarded.

Patrushev himself received the rank of army general in July 2001 - a few months after the explosions in Mineralnye Vody, Essentuki and Cherkessk (then a total of 24 people were killed). So Putin congratulated him on his fiftieth birthday.

Patrushev, receiving another rank, does not forget his generals. Immediately after Nord-Ost, he nominated the head of the Moscow department of the FSB, Viktor Zakharov, whose task is to prevent terrorist attacks in the capital and region, to the rank of colonel general. And recently, the director of the FSB promoted to the rank of Colonel General Alexander Zhdankov, head of the department of combating terrorism.

Merits and failures

All the most important achievements are marked with corresponding ranks and awards: the military rank of Army General (awarded in 2001). Doctor of Law. State awards: title of Hero of the Russian Federation, Order of Military Merit and 7 medals. He was also awarded orders and medals from a number of foreign countries.

The failures are known to everyone: explosions in the Moscow metro, residential buildings in Russian cities, the seizure of schools, cultural centers... the fact that today the people of our country continue to die not natural deaths... But there are no demotions in ranks and ranks, and even more so failures not observed at all. The fact that Patrushev can present even the biggest mistake of those responsible for the country’s security as something for which life, which is sometimes unfair, is to blame is a merit.

Compromising evidence

"Nord-Ost". Chechen terrorists seized the Palace of Culture of the Bearing Plant and took 800 hostages. Patrushev receives the Order of Merit for the Fatherland.

It’s just a fact: on October 26, the department’s employees only learned about the storming of the cultural center from news broadcasts and, naturally, did not expect anyone to come... At 9 a.m., an ordinary UAZ with 12 seats drove up to the door of the department. There were 30 victims lying on top of each other, piled in one heap. No movement, no gunshot wounds... It immediately became clear that several people had already died in the car. But not from the gas, but from the fact that they were run over. At the very bottom was a 13-year-old girl. Epicrisis: crushed...`.

From 1917 to 1991, the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD-MGB-KGB, carrying out the will of communist leaders of various ranks, exterminated 66 million people in concentration camps. More than died in all countries participating in World War II. In total, over these years, over 70 million people were repressed on the territory of the former USSR (counting those forcibly expelled, exiled, dispossessed). And all these are not enemies of the people - these are the people themselves. However, we must not forget that the people have always been not only victims of terror. He was its customer and executor. It was in the name of the people that executions and mass atrocities were committed in the fatherland.

Several years ago, the head of the Russian Chekist department, Patrushev, stated with undisguised pride that the Chekists have not abandoned and are not going to abandon their past, they are proud of it. Imagine that, say, in Germany, the chief of the German intelligence service publicly called himself a follower of the Gestapo cause. It seems that the minimum punishment that he would have suffered would have been to instantly lose his position... And recently the same Patrushev, the “chief security officer,” called on ordinary people to more actively cooperate with the intelligence services, supply the information the “authorities” need, and “if this happens on an ongoing basis , then this person does good for society...” (probably meaning for Putin’s entourage).

Today, about 80 percent of the leading official positions in the country are occupied by personnel security officers - punishers and spies... In recent years, the FSB budget has grown 360 times!

P Atrushev Nikolay Platonovich – Director of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, Colonel General.

Born on July 11, 1951 in the city of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in the family of a military sailor. Russian. Father, Platon Ignatievich Patrushev, served in the Navy during the Great Patriotic War, from the end of 1944 he accompanied the northern sea convoys of the allies, and retired with the rank of captain 1st rank. Mother, Antonina Nikolaevna, a chemist by training, was a nurse during the Soviet-Finnish War and the Leningrad Siege, and after the war she worked in a construction company. He studied at physics and mathematics school No. 211 in Leningrad. In 1974 he graduated from the instrument engineering department of the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute. He worked as an engineer at the institute's design bureau.

Since 1974 in state security agencies. In 1975 he graduated from the Higher Courses of the State Security Committee (KGB) under the Council of Ministers of the USSR in Minsk (Belarus). After completing the courses, he served in the counterintelligence unit of the KGB of the USSR for the Leningrad Region: junior detective, detective, head of the city department, deputy head of the district department, head of the service for combating smuggling and corruption. He completed a one-year advanced training course at the Higher School of the KGB of the USSR.

After the collapse of the USSR, he continued to serve in the security agencies of the Russian Federation. From June 1992 to 1994 – Minister of Security of the Republic of Karelia, Head of the Directorate of the Federal Counterintelligence Service of the Russian Federation for Karelia. In 1994-1998 - Head of the Internal Security Directorate of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB of Russia), Deputy Head of the Department - Head of the Organizational Inspection Directorate of the Department for Organizational and Personnel Work of the FSB of Russia.

Since May 1998 – Head of the Main Control Directorate (GCU) of the President of the Russian Federation. From August 11, 1998 to October 5, 1998 - Deputy Head of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation - Head of the State Civil Institution.

From October 6, 1998 to April 1999 - Head of the Department of Economic Security - Deputy Director of the FSB of Russia. Since April 1999 - First Deputy Director of the FSB of Russia. Since August 9, 1999 - acting, since August 17, 1999 - Director of the FSB of Russia. He replaced V.V. Putin in this post and remained in office throughout his two presidential terms (1999-2008). In October 1999, he was elected chairman of the Council of Heads of Security Agencies and Special Services of the CIS. Since November 1999 - permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

On September 4-16, 1999, a month after his appointment as director of the Russian FSB, a series of major terrorist attacks occurred on Russian territory - explosions of residential buildings in Buinaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk. The authorities declared the organizers of these crimes to be Chechen separatists, none of whom, however, took responsibility for the terrorist attacks. However, the house bombings became the basis for the start of the second Chechen campaign.

U Decree of the President of the Russian Federation (“closed”) dated March 15, 2000 (according to other sources, dated January 14, 2002) for courage and heroism shown during the performance of a special task, Colonel General Patrushev Nikolai Platonovich awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation with a special distinction - the Gold Star medal.

In subsequent years, against the backdrop of the armed confrontation in Chechnya, a number of major terrorist acts were committed in Russia, including in territories where hostilities did not take place. Among them: an explosion in the passage of the Pushkinskaya metro station in Moscow (2000), an explosion in Kaspiysk during celebrations on the occasion of Victory Day (2002), the capture of spectators of the musical "Nord-Ost" in Moscow (2002), the explosion of a bus carrying employees of the Mozdok airfield (2003), terrorist attacks during the Wings rock festival in Moscow (2003), an explosion in the Kislovodsk - Mineralnye Vody train (2003), an explosion in a Moscow metro car on the Paveletskaya - Avtozavodskaya section ( 2004), explosions in the air of Tu-134 and Tu-154 aircraft (2004), explosion at the Rizhskaya metro station in Moscow (2004), siege of a school in Beslan (2004).

In January 2001, N.P. Patrushev headed the Operational Headquarters for managing counter-terrorism operations in the North Caucasus region (he headed it until August 2003). Since 2000, the Russian FSB has carried out a number of operations to eliminate Chechen separatist leaders and militants, such as Khattab, Aslan Maskhadov, Abu Omar al-Seif and Shamil Basayev, whom the Russian FSB called the masterminds of most of the terrorist attacks carried out in Russia.

In March 2003, during an exercise to develop methods of fighting terrorists in high altitude conditions, N.P. Patrushev personally led a group of state security officers in climbing the highest mountain in Europe - Elbrus (5642 m). In 2004-2009 he was chairman of the All-Russian Volleyball Federation. In January 2007, two Mi-8 helicopters of the FSB of Russia with N.P. Patrushev and A.N. Chilingarov on board landed at the South Pole in Antarctica.

In February 2006, N.P. Patrushev became the head of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, which invited militants operating in Chechnya to enter into negotiations with local or federal authorities. According to the Russian FSB, at the beginning of 2007, about five thousand members of illegal armed groups took advantage of the proposed amnesty. In March 2007, he was approved as a member of the Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation of the Russian Federation with Foreign States. In September 2007, he was appointed a member of the newly formed Council under the President of the Russian Federation for the development of physical culture and sports, elite sports, preparation and holding of the XXII Winter Olympic Games and XI Winter Paralympic Games in 2014 in Sochi.

On May 12, 2008, he was relieved of his post and appointed Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. In this position, he pays a lot of attention to defending Russia’s interests in the Arctic and participates in the development of the country’s state policy in this region. In addition, he took part in the preparation of the new military doctrine of Russia, approved by the President of the Russian Federation in February 2010.

Lives and works in Moscow.

Army General (07/11/2001), Honored Employee of the Security Agencies of the Russian Federation. Awarded the Orders “For Services to the Fatherland” 1st (07/11/2006), 2nd (12/30/2002), 3rd (08/1/2005) and 4th degrees, Alexander Nevsky, Courage, “For Military Merit” , “For Naval Merit” (2002), Honor (2011), medals, including the Ushakov Medal, Certificate of Honor of the Government of the Russian Federation (2001), the Order of the Holy Blessed Grand Duke Dimitri Donskoy, 1st degree (2005, Russian Orthodox Church), as well as orders and medals of foreign countries, including the Order of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, 3rd degree (2001, Ukraine), the Order of Honor (2001, Belarus), the Order of the Battle Cross, 1st degree (2003, Armenia). Recipient of gratitude from the President of the Russian Federation (07/11/2000, 11/4/2006, 02/2/2013).

Doctor of Law. Laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation, the State Prize of the Russian Federation named after Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov (05/07/2009; for the development of the training manual “Fundamentals of special training for employees of the federal security service agencies sent to the zone of counter-terrorism operations in the North Caucasus”, which makes a significant contribution to contribution to strengthening the defense capability of the state; as part of a team), prizes from the Government of the Russian Federation.

Honorary citizen of the Republic of Karelia (06/05/2006).

Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev- Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation since May 12, 2008, Russian statesman, army general (2001). Nikolai Patrushev - Hero of the Russian Federation (2001). Director of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (1999−2008), full holder of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland. Nikolai Patrushev was also the chairman of the supervisory board of the All-Russian Volleyball Federation, the president of the All-Russian Volleyball Federation (2004−2009).

Early years and education

Father - Platon Ignatievich Patrushev(1918−1995) - originally from peasants. Platon Patrushev was a participant in the Great Patriotic War and served in the Navy since 1938, according to Nikolai Patrushev’s biography on Wikipedia. Member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) since 1939, served on the destroyer "Threatening" of the Baltic Fleet, party organizer of the crew, then deputy commander of the destroyer "Active" for political affairs. He was awarded the medals “For the Defense of Leningrad”, “For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945”, the Order of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st and 2nd degree. Nikolai Patrushev's father retired as a captain of the 1st rank.

Mother - Antonina Nikolaevna Patrusheva- a chemist by training. Antonina Nikolaevna was a nurse during the Soviet-Finnish war and during the Leningrad blockade, after the war she worked in a construction company.

Nikolai Patrushev studied at Leningrad secondary school No. 211, his classmate was the future chairman of the Supreme Council of the United Russia party. Boris Gryzlov.

After school, Nikolai Patrushev received a higher education by entering the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute at the instrument-making department.

Career of Nikolai Patrushev

Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev worked as an engineer at the institute's design bureau. Patrushev’s biography on the FSB website says that he worked as an engineer at one of the departments of the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute.

It also notes that Nikolai Platonovich has been in the state security agencies since 1974.

In 1974-1975, Nikolai Patrushev was a student at the higher KGB courses at the USSR Council of Ministers in Minsk.

After completing the courses, Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev worked in the counterintelligence unit of the USSR KGB directorate for the Leningrad region, first as a junior detective, then as an detective. Nikolai Patrushev was appointed head of the city department, deputy head of the regional department, and finally, head of the service for combating smuggling and corruption. At the same time, Nikolai Platonovich completed a one-year advanced training course at the Higher School of the KGB of the USSR.

Then, in the biography of Nikolai Patrushev, the position of Minister of Security of the Republic of Karelia (1992−1994) appears. Nikolai Platonovich also worked as the head of the department of the Federal Counterintelligence Service of the Russian Federation for Karelia.

From 1994 to 1998, Nikolai Patrushev served as Head of the Internal Security Directorate of the FSB of Russia, and was deputy head of the department - head of the organizational and inspection department of the Department for Organizational and Personnel Work of the FSB of Russia.

Successfully climbing the career ladder, Nikolai Patrushev in 1998 was appointed head of the Main Control Directorate (GCU) of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, replacing him in this position Vladimir Putin.

Since January 29, 1999, Nikolai Patrushev has been a member of the Interdepartmental Commission for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergency Situations. In April, Nikolai Platonovich was appointed first deputy director of the FSB of Russia. From April 16, 1999 to May 12, 2008, Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev - Director of the FSB of Russia (also after Vladimir Putin).

On November 20, 1999, Nikolai Patrushev was appointed to the post of deputy chairman of the Federal Anti-Terrorism Commission.

From January 2001 to August 2003, Nikolai Platonovich headed the Operational Headquarters for managing counter-terrorism operations in the North Caucasus region.

Nikolai Patrushev’s track record includes the position of head of the task force to strengthen public security, protect the population from terrorism in the Stavropol Territory and the Karachay-Cherkess Republic and provide emergency assistance to citizens affected by terrorist attacks (2001), membership in the Maritime Board under the Russian government (2003) , Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation of the Russian Federation with Foreign States (2007), Council under the President of the Russian Federation for the Development of Physical Culture and Sports (since 2007), elite sports, preparation and holding of the XXII Winter Olympic Games and XI Winter Paralympic Games in 2014 in the city of Sochi.

On May 12, 2008, Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev was appointed to the post of Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

21 January 2016 British High Court Judge Sir Robert Owen during the announcement of the results of the public inquiry into the case Alexandra Litvinenko stated that the court had established that Litvinenko was killed by an ex-officer of the State Security Administration Andrey Lugovoi and his partner Dmitry Kovtun. Owen concluded that the murder was “most likely approved” personally by FSB head Nikolai Patrushev and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Sanctions against Nikolai Patrushev

On April 6, 2018, Patrushev was included in the US sanctions “Kremlin list” among 17 officials and 7 businessmen from Russia close to Vladimir Putin.

Nikolai Patrushev believes that the publication by the US Treasury of the list of persons included in the “Kremlin Report” will negatively affect relations between Moscow and Washington, but will not in any way affect the foreign policy pursued by Russia.

In addition, he believes that this publication was only an attempt by the administration of the current American president Donald Trump distract public attention from US internal problems with a contrived foreign threat.

“The course taken by the United States in regional and international affairs, which includes countering such imaginary external threats as Russia and China, is intended, first of all, to divert the attention of ordinary Americans from the difficult internal situation in the United States,” he said.

According to Patrushev, uncoordinated actions of departments and ministries in the United States lead to the accumulation of internal problems and contradictions that the current authorities are unable to effectively resolve, Interfax reported.

Views of Nikolai Patrushev

In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, Nikolai Patrushev spoke about the “demonization” of people who began their career in the special services when they came to the highest echelons of power.

“The appearance on Staraya Square, in the Kremlin and in the regions of people who have gone through the school of leadership work in national security structures is a vital need to inject “fresh blood” into the administrative corps of Russia, a desire to tap into the potential of responsible and organized people who, despite everything, have retained "spirit of public service". I know many of them well. These are modern-minded, educated people. Not weak-willed idealists, but tough pragmatists who understand the logic of the development of international and domestic political events, ripening contradictions and threats. At the same time, they well understand the impossibility of returning to the old, the need to develop the country on the basis of a reasonable combination of liberal and traditional values,” says Nikolai Patrushev.

In that interview, Patrushev expressed the concept of “neo-nobles”.

“Our best employees, the honor and pride of the FSB, do not work for money. When I have to present government awards to our guys, I carefully look at their faces. High-brow intellectual analysts, broad-shouldered weather-beaten special forces soldiers, silent explosives experts, strict investigators, reserved counterintelligence officers... Outwardly they are different, but there is one important quality that unites them - they are service people, if you like, modern “neo-nobles,” he said then director of the FSB.

By the way, as Sobesednik wrote, “in 2007, the head of the Russian Imperial House of Romanov, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, granted Nikolai Patrushev a noble title.”

Nikolai Patrushev took the initiative to create an “Internet squad” of patriotic bloggers to conduct online educational work among children and youth.

According to his plan, official resources of the regional leadership should be involved in this work.

“We should also more actively use the capabilities of public organizations in the work of patriotic and spiritual-moral education of children and youth, think through measures within the framework of the volunteer movement to create an institute of so-called “Internet vigilantes,” attracting for this active Internet users from among bloggers,” - RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.

Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev believes that the new US national security strategy is imposing on the world the principles of the Cold War era, the main goal of which is to aggressively push through its economic interests in the world.

“Behind the images of aggressor countries imposed by Washington are real economic interests and the same expansionist attitudes of the Cold War that have not changed for decades,” the media quoted him as saying.

Earlier, Nikolai Patrushev warned that the United States was preparing a color revolution in Russia.

Nikolai Patrushev noted that Victoria Nuland, assistant John Kerry, then US Secretary of State, referred to the $5 billion spent by America to “support democratic institutions and civil society.” In fact, this means organizing a change of power.

“There was a legally elected president, whether someone liked him or not is a matter of assessment, but he was elected legally, and no one denied this. But the USA was not happy with it. And, although his presidency was coming to an end and the people of Ukraine would not have re-elected him, they decided to overthrow him by force. This was their political mistake. If they had waited, they would have been able to get the people they needed through the legal route. But they initiated a coup. If there had been no coup, there would have been no events in Crimea and eastern Ukraine,”

KGB. Chairmen of state security agencies. Declassified destinies Mlechin Leonid Mikhailovich

Chapter 25 NIKOLAI PLATONOVICH PATRUSHEV

NIKOLAI PLATONOVICH PATRUSHEV

When leaving for the government, Putin left his man at Lubyanka - Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev. Putin said that Patrushev is one of the people whom he absolutely trusts. And everyone immediately drew attention to the personal devotion of the new FSB director to Putin.

Vladimir Vladimirovich was still the head of government, and Patrushev accompanied him everywhere, although usually FSB leaders and prime ministers behave, of course, correctly and kindly, but still report only to the president. But this was a special case.

Nikolai Platonovich, together with Putin, flew to Chechnya on New Year’s Eve to award orders and hunting knives to officers who distinguished themselves in battle.

REPLACEMENT

Nikolai Patrushev was born in 1951. In 1974 he graduated from the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute, and was immediately invited to the KGB. In the Leningrad State Security Department, as they say, he met Putin.

Patrushev avoids publicity, rarely gives interviews and tries not to say anything about himself. He is known to enjoy hunting, fishing and volleyball.

His career in the state security agencies was quite successful. In 1992–1994, Patrushev headed the department of the Federal Counterintelligence Service for Karelia, then was transferred to Moscow to the post of head of the organizational and inspection department of the department of organizational and personnel work of the Federal Security Service.

In 1998, his personnel rise began. Putin, who became the first deputy head of the presidential administration, recommended Patrushev to his former position as head of the Main Control Directorate of the President. But Nikolai Platonovich did not have time to work in the presidential administration.

Putin literally two months later became director of the FSB and took Patrushev to his place, appointing him deputy director and head of the most important department of economic security - this is control over what is happening in Russian business.

At the beginning of 1999, Nikolai Platonovich had already become the first deputy director of the FSB and actually led the entire service, because Putin devoted more time to his duties in the Security Council. When Yeltsin instructed Putin to head the government, he agreed with Boris Nikolayevich that he would leave Patrushev in his place at Lubyanka.

Several other close acquaintances of Putin have taken up prominent positions in the ranks of state security. General Alexander Grigoriev, a friend of the president since his student days, became deputy director of the FSB. A photograph of them together is included in Vladimir Putin’s book “First Person”. Then Grigoriev was transferred to his native Leningrad as the head of the department. But soon he unexpectedly left this position - they say he did not get along with a person even closer to Putin - Viktor Cherkesov. In this conflict, the president sided with Cherkesov.

Grigoriev was replaced in the northern capital by another representative of the close-knit St. Petersburg team - Lieutenant General Sergei Smirnov. Before that, he headed the internal security department of the Federal Security Service.

This department deals only with serious matters. Relatively minor offenses are dealt with by the personnel department and the personnel inspectorate in the FSB inspection department, which, on the instructions of the director, conducts an official investigation. Security officers also lose weapons, get into traffic accidents, or even get involved in fights... General Smirnov told reporters that the greatest danger was posed by attempts by commercial structures to bribe state security officers. He believes that foreign intelligence services take advantage of this, introducing their people into commercial structures, and they skillfully lure information out of employees of the Federal Security Service.

Vladimir Shultz was appointed State Secretary and Deputy Director of the FSB. He graduated from Leningrad University in 1972, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor. He served in state security since 1992 as deputy head of the St. Petersburg department, then headed the FSB Academy.

Another native of St. Petersburg, Evgeniy Alekseevich Murov, became the head of the Federal Security Service. He first served in intelligence, and in 1992 he changed his path and moved to counterintelligence. He worked in St. Petersburg, headed various regional departments, and rose to become deputy head of the regional department.

After his appointment to the post of chief security guard, journalists started talking about how Putin was placing people personally known to him everywhere.

Yes, Vladimir Vladimirovich has a lot of acquaintances and friends,” Murov answered. - And yet, he only takes into his team those people whom he knows as professionals.

MYSTERIOUS EXPLOSIONS

Under Patrushev, in the summer of 1999, the Vladimir department of the FSB launched a high-profile audit of the company, which belonged to the wife of Yuri Luzhkov. By this time, the Moscow mayor had already announced his participation in the election campaign, and the sudden initiative of the Vladimir security officers was perceived as a retaliatory blow, although this was denied at Lubyanka. The check ended in nothing, but some damage was done to Luzhkov’s reputation.

Patrushev's appointment coincided with the beginning of the second Chechen war.

The invasion of Chechen militants into Dagestan had been in preparation for several months, if not years. The military later said with irritation that long-term defensive structures had been created there, and were indignant at the behavior of the local authorities, who did not notice anything. Were you surprised how the Federal Security Service missed the preparations for the invasion of Dagestan? But in the heat of those days, these questions remained unanswered.

When the militants who had penetrated into Dagestan were almost destroyed, explosions were heard in Moscow and other cities. These were well-prepared terrorist attacks. Several hundred people died.

From the very first minute, everyone assumed that this was the work of Chechen militants.

In the fall of 1999, the military operation against Chechnya was supported by almost all political forces in the country. Terrorist attacks in Moscow and other cities played a huge role in mobilizing public opinion, which saw in Putin a person capable of protecting the country from terror. The Second Chechen War played a decisive role in Putin's election as president.

And the FSB employees constantly repeated: “We have no doubt that these explosions were organized by Chechen field commanders.” Yes, no one seemed to have any doubts. But personal conviction is not evidence for the court. Everyone expected that the FSB would quickly be able to uncover these barbaric crimes and name the organizers and perpetrators.

Professionals were clearly acting here. These explosions were not a response to the defeat of the militants in Dagestan. The explosions were prepared ahead of time. When one terrorist attack follows another, this is a classic strategy of tension. This is an attempt to intimidate an entire country.

If the explosions were the work of Chechen militants, then this means that of all types of terrorism we are faced with the worst. It is incredibly difficult to fight Islamic extremism; it is almost impossible to achieve real success and completely protect yourself.

Islamist terrorist groups around the world are considered very difficult targets for intelligence penetration. These are closely knit clans numbering several hundred people, of which only a few are privy to terror plans.

Someone is developing such operations - you need to know what and how to blow up. Someone is recruiting and training militants. Someone provides a large amount of explosives and skillfully assembles the explosive device. Someone is supplying the group with fake but reliable documents. Someone provides them with support - delivers them to the city, rents apartments, provides cars - stolen or with false license plates.

Then a reasonable question arose: why was the FSB, with such a huge and extensive apparatus, unable to prevent these terrible explosions that claimed so many lives?

It was also surprising that month after month passed, and the organizers and perpetrators of terrorist acts in Moscow and other cities continued to walk free.

One of the militants was arrested in this case, but what testimony they gave, what was found out, again remained unknown.

In the Urus-Martan area, advancing federal troops discovered a militant training camp for training terrorists. There was a testing ground where improvised explosive devices were tested. They also found equipment for making a homemade explosive mixture from ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder. As if exactly such a substance was used in the fall of 1999 in explosions in Moscow. True, we were not told what the result of the examination of these substances was. Was the version that it was the Chechens who prepared such explosives confirmed or not?

And in the absence of reliable information, the craziest rumors circulated. They also wrote that these explosions were a provocation, organized in order to obtain a pretext for striking Chechnya and thereby ensuring the election of Vladimir Putin as president. They said that there are people who know the truth. Boris Berezovsky was supposedly among them, which is why they didn’t touch him when they tried to imprison Gusinsky...

The suggestion that the explosions were actually a provocation by security forces is monstrous. But the laws that the mass consciousness obeys are known: until a full investigation is carried out and an open and transparent trial takes place, people can assume anything.

RYAZAN HISTORY

FSB leaders often spoke of hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign mercenaries in Chechnya. But these elusive foreigners could not be captured. For a simple reason: the war on the other side - with few exceptions - was waged not by foreign mercenaries, but by our fellow citizens with the same passports as all of us. Apart from Jordanian Khattab, no other foreign names were mentioned.

The FSB claimed to have operational data on foreign aid flowing to Chechen militants. The words “live data” work magic. But operational materials are just a reason for conducting an audit, which can confirm or refute the data obtained operationally.

The FSB complained that the official responses of foreign states to all requests sound like this: our country does not provide assistance to terrorists. And the FSB confidently said that it knew specific people, foreign organizations that help Chechens, and even the numbers of bank accounts through which money goes to field commanders. But why, in this case, were these data never made public?

Maybe because in reality both the money and weapons of the Chechen militants are of Russian origin? It would be better if Lubyanka analyzed and reported exactly how all these years Chechnya managed to receive Russian weapons and Russian money.

At the end of 1999, the heads of the FSB department for the protection of the constitutional order and the fight against terrorism assessed the work of their department as unsatisfactory. They admitted that they could not prevent terrorist attacks in Moscow and other cities. As a result, 305 people died.

But it is still not known whether the necessary work on the errors was carried out? Former FSB director Nikolai Kovalev, elected to the State Duma, said that he created a department that, in particular, used electronic intelligence equipment to monitor the activity of militants in Chechnya and could prevent terrorist attacks.

When Kovalev was removed and Putin was appointed director of the FSB, and Patrushev was appointed his first deputy, the department was disbanded. What do the current leaders of the FSB think about this? Unknown.

The only thing we know for certain about the work of the FSB after the explosions is the desire of the security officers to teach the country vigilance. It ended with a wild story in Ryazan, where explosives were also discovered, and the residents of an entire house - women, children, old people - spent the whole night on the street waiting for the explosion. And the next day, the leaders of the FSB said that it was a training exercise and instead of explosives there was a harmless substance. The security officers decided to check whether their police colleagues were doing a good job...

None of the wonderful security officers thought about what this terrible night in anticipation of the explosion meant for the inhabitants of that house in Ryazan, for women, for children, for the elderly. Back then they said that officials who don’t care about people have no place in the public service. However, the FSB continued to insist that this type of exercise was necessary in order to maintain a spirit of vigilance among the people.

The Ryazan story gave rise to a new surge of rumors that the explosions were a provocation. Because there was talk that real explosives were planted in Ryazan after all...

In January 2001, Putin handed over leadership of all operations in Chechnya to Nikolai Patrushev, based on the fact that the military had completed its task. The President instructed the FSB director to report on the results achieved by May 15.

The comments then were different. Some said that this meant strengthening Patrushev’s positions. Others, on the contrary, noted the danger of this appointment: from now on, Patrushev will be responsible for every death, for every terrorist attack in Chechnya. And there the guerrilla war will go on for a long time.

Russian units in Chechnya find themselves in the position of occupation troops being shot in the back. The militants dispersed, changed into civilian clothes, hid their weapons, but did not stop fighting.

In Chechnya, they hoped that the security officers would stop total purges using aviation and artillery, and instead would catch or destroy the bandit leaders - and then, perhaps, the intensity of the war would subside.

But the nature of the war has not changed. In response to each terrorist attack, a massive military strike followed, which, in turn, brought more and more Chechens into the ranks of the militants.

May 15 has passed, but the situation in Chechnya has, perhaps, only worsened: in the summer, fighting in the Caucasus is always more active than in the winter. Patrushev met with journalists and tried to answer the question of why the main leaders of the militants, Khattab and Shamil Basayev, have not yet been killed.

We are capable of destroying Basayev or Khattab today, but this is fraught with large losses on our part,” the FSB director said confidently. “I think that this would be an unreasonably large price to pay for their capture.” Now we are actively neutralizing middle managers. This way we reduce our losses to a minimum.

Journalists insisted:

They say that for some reason you do not want to eliminate the militant commanders.

“We want and can do this,” Patrushev answered. “But it’s completely natural to want to save your people.” The main leaders of the militants are hiding in a well-known inaccessible mountainous area, the approaches to which are mined...

The operational headquarters for the management of the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya was headed by Vice Admiral German Alekseevich Ugryumov, Deputy Director of the FSB and Director of the 2nd Department (for the protection of the constitutional order and the fight against terrorism). He was the head of the FSB department for the Pacific Fleet, deputy head of the military counterintelligence department. On May 31, 2001, he died of acute heart failure right at his workplace in Khankala.

In Chechnya, civilians became victims of artillery shelling and air bombing. And the death of someone close makes the whole family take revenge for the murdered person. The military operation in Chechnya, which led to both civilian casualties and mass flight of people, did not at all turn the Chechens into friends of Russia.

In the Baltic states and Western Ukraine after World War II - that is, under Stalin’s total control! - It took the state security agencies seven or eight years to liquidate the nationalist underground. Therefore, experts promise many more years of active combat operations in Chechnya. But at the same time, few people remember that the suppression of the nationalist insurgency in Western Ukraine and the Baltic republics essentially changed little. At the first opportunity, these republics separated from Russia.

OUR “NON-NOBYORIES”

But Chechnya is perhaps the only disappointment for the current security officers. Patrushev headed the FSB at a happy time for the security officers, when their position in society began to change.

Boris Yeltsin remained distrustful of the state security agencies until the end of his presidential reign. In addition, he firmly grasped several important democratic principles. He never wanted to become a dictator, he didn’t even try. The media literally poured slop on him for years. But he decided for himself that freedom of the press should be preserved, and not a single journalist was afraid of him. It was safer to trash the president than any official in the country. Under Putin, everything began to change. Journalists and intellectuals once again felt the pressure of the state apparatus, which does not tolerate criticism and opposition.

The security officers came to life, they became much more active and visible. They regained their sense of self-worth.

Nikolai Patrushev in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda said:

When I have to present government awards to our guys, I carefully look at their faces. High-brow intellectual analysts, broad-shouldered weather-beaten special forces soldiers, silent explosives technicians, strict investigators, reserved counterintelligence operators... Outwardly they are different, but there is one important quality that unites them - they are servicemen, if you like, modern “neo-nobles.”

The “neo-noble” security officers began to seek a more prominent place in the life of the country, even running for deputies and governors. The head of the Voronezh State Security Department, General Vladimir Grigorievich Kulakov, was elected governor of the Voronezh region.

Under Soviet rule, KGB officers were not made first secretaries of regional committees and chairmen of regional executive committees. This was considered impossible. There was only one obvious exception - Heydar Aliyev. But there was an explanation for this: in Azerbaijan it was necessary to suppress corruption at all costs.

Boris Pugo in Latvia or Givi Gumbaridze in Georgia also became the first secretaries of the republican Central Committee from the post of chairman of the republican KGB, but both of them were not professional security officers, but spent their whole lives in party and Komsomol work...

“The Russian bureaucracy has recovered and crushed all living things under itself,” wrote the poet Dmitry Sukharev in Novaya Gazeta. - What is the central apparatus of the Academy of Sciences? This is the same as the secretariat of the Writers' Union, that is, a branch of the KGB. To avoid being dispersed, they hid for a while. But now they have nothing to fear... They have already restored the first departments in academic institutes. We restored the lifestyle from which we had become unaccustomed... We are up against the backs of our old acquaintances and spies, our eternal curators... For repressions and purges, only political will is needed. I can only hope that they no longer have this will.”

Even the chairman of the Duma Security Committee, Lieutenant General Alexander Gurov, who himself served in the KGB, spoke with indignation in May 2001 that the Russian security agencies were reviving the shameful spirit of informing and snitching in the country.

The trials organized by the FSB of scientists accused of espionage became noticeable. These are people who worked closely with foreign colleagues. They were accused of disclosing secret information, although they did not have access to information constituting a state secret, did not sign a non-disclosure agreement, and did not even know what, in fact, was a secret. These processes are perceived rather as a desire to intimidate and reduce wide communication with the outside world.

And the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences issued, as in Soviet times, instructions that require scientists to report their contacts with foreigners and report after traveling abroad.

THE PENDULUM WENT BACK

One of the peculiarities of our spiritual history is that the concepts of “intellectual”, “intelligentsia”, “intelligentsia” invariably retain an openly disparaging connotation. This disdain for intelligence should have ended long ago, but nothing changes.

A true intellectual, by his very nature, is inclined to criticize. The inability to conform, the desire to question what others seem natural - that is, opposition to everything that exists - is characteristic of an intellectual. This predetermines the conflict between the intelligentsia and the authorities.

An intellectual considers it his duty to be a heretic, to go against the grain, to say something different from what others say, to contradict the generally accepted point of view and to stand up for all the humiliated and offended.

That is why intellectuals have so often been called anti-patriots, cosmopolitans, traitors and defilers of their own nest in our history.

It has always been this way. After the suppression of the 1905 revolution, Maxim Gorky traveled around the world and called for no loans to be given to the tsarist government. This also seemed terribly unpatriotic to some.

But what should a real intellectual do?

There are two lines of behavior. One is to resolutely protest against the stupid, harmful and criminal actions of the authorities. This is what, say, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov did. The other line is to try to influence the government from within, to restrain it. This is what Alexander Tvardovsky did when he edited the magazine “New World”, and academician Pyotr Kapitsa, who constantly wrote to Stalin, then Molotov, then Khrushchev and always achieved something.

Which behavior model is more correct?

For example, Tvardovsky, constantly making curtsies towards the Central Committee and censorship, nevertheless managed to turn the “New World” into an outpost of liberal thought. Academician Kapitsa, using his authority, managed to help many, and pulled the future Nobel Prize winner Lev Landau out of prison.

But they were forced to stay within certain limits and through their cooperation gave the authorities a semblance of respectability. And they were reproached for this. Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn believed that the most important thing was to follow one’s principles, and that compromise with power was disastrous. Sakharov said this: nothing can be done, but one cannot remain silent either.

The question always arises of what price a person is willing to pay for protest. Even a modest expression of disagreement entailed the deprivation of some privileges. They weren’t allowed to go abroad, they weren’t given an order for the anniversary.

At first they said that Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov could afford a lot thanks to their world fame. But fame was their relative protection. One was thrown out of the country, the other was sent into exile.

Dmitry Shostakovich, when asked why he signed the vile collective letters that were prepared in the apparatus of the CPSU Central Committee, answered dryly: “I’m afraid of them.” But few admitted so directly that they lacked the civic temperament and courage required to be a dissenter.

A person like the main creator of nuclear weapons, Julius Khariton, could have done a lot to influence the authorities and protect the unjustly offended, but he did not want to. He believed that his work was more important than anything else, and could not imagine that he would lose this job, respect and honor.

Others genuinely did not like the dissidents. They saw them as destroyers of the state. The talented physicist and future Nobel Prize laureate Zhores Alferov not only did not support dissidents, but also made sure that they were not in his institute. The President of the Academy of Sciences, Mstislav Keldysh, twisted the arms of academicians so that they would sign letters condemning Sakharov.

And finally, still others are irritated by the very presence of people who are able to risk everything for the sake of their principles. It is unpleasant for them to realize that they are not capable of this. And it is psychologically important for them to debunk those who are capable of courageous acts. This is an instinct of mental self-preservation.

After all, it is psychologically extremely unpleasant when someone nearby continues to tell the truth, and you are already lying. Therefore, I really want those who are still resisting to be silent as soon as possible, or even better, to join the general chorus.

In Russia, it is easier to meet a saint than an impeccably decent person, philosopher Konstantin Leontyev once joked. Confronting a person with impeccable integrity can be disconcerting and even infuriating.

By the way, many people would be wary of putting their signatures under collective denunciations and would generally do less nasty things if they knew that the Soviet system would collapse and all their actions would become known.

“A calf butted an oak tree” - this is how Solzhenitsyn once called his attempt to resist the state machine. A head-on collision with an oak tree has a hard time for a calf. And only a few dare to do this - like, say, the famous human rights activist and State Duma deputy Sergei Adamovich Kovalev. He belongs to that rare type of unselfish people who at all times go against the prevailing opinion, without worrying at all about their personal fate. But are there many such people? And is it possible to demand such uncompromisingness from anyone?

The liberal intelligentsia is alone in its dissatisfaction with the state apparatus. Most people are happy that the authorities are once again taking control of all the threads of managing society. The times of complete freedom did not bring happiness to many people.

Having to decide everything on my own turned out to be an unbearably difficult ordeal. Previously, a person knew what would happen tomorrow, what would happen in ten years, he could predict. And suddenly he was forced to think about tomorrow, how to live. They were not accustomed to this. And not everyone is capable, especially at an advanced age, of learning to do this.

The mood in society has changed.

An all-Russian public opinion poll conducted at the beginning of 2001 showed that 77 percent of respondents considered the Federal Security Service to be a necessary agency for the country.

We can say that the very spirit of the times has changed. People no longer want radical change. They reject both revolutions and revolutionaries.

“A revolution,” former Deputy Prime Minister Professor Yevgeny Yasin said in an interview with Novye Izvestia, “is characterized by chaos, weakening of the state, and a period of general discontent arising from the disorder reigning in the country.

Therefore, sooner or later the process of post-revolutionary stabilization begins. It began in Russia under Yeltsin. In a sense, these processes are inevitable. In this political stabilization, excesses are inevitable. Let's say, the same processes after the Great French Revolution ended with Napoleon, after the English Revolution - with Cromwell, after the October Revolution - with Stalin. I hope that a similar fate does not await Russia now.”

This is characteristic of man: after everything that has been experienced, after all the storms and unrest, one wants peace.

A man is desperately looking for a foothold. Yesterday people rebelled against the authorities, today they seek its protection. Many people believe that we do not have democracy, but anarchy. And anarchy must end. And here people from the special services, who now occupy such prominent positions in the state apparatus, will be very useful.

On December 20, 2000, in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, Patrushev spoke about an attempt to “demonize” former state security officers who came to power:

“The appearance on Staraya Square, in the Kremlin and in the regions of people who have gone through the school of leadership work in national security structures is a vital need to inject “fresh blood” into the administrative corps of Russia, the desire to tap into the potential of responsible and organized people who, despite everything, have retained "spirit of public service". These are not weak-willed idealists, but tough pragmatists who understand the logic of the development of international and domestic political events, emerging contradictions and threats. At the same time, they well understand the impossibility of returning to the old ways, the need for the country’s development based on a reasonable combination of liberal and traditional values.”

It is not very clear what values ​​Patrushev considers “traditional”. If we are talking about the traditional values ​​of Lubyanka, which are discussed in this book, then they are hardly compatible with liberal values ​​and human rights, with a normal life.

Some people said that after a long period of freedom, the country needed severity, to restore order, and that’s why people from Lubyanka were needed. The main thing is that they don’t go too far...

But the idea that the stick has definitely been gone too far, that the pendulum of historical development has in a certain sense gone backwards, that the strengthening of the state will be associated with a restriction of rights and freedoms that is disastrous for the country, comes to many people’s minds. As the outstanding Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky once said: “in Russia, when the state grows stronger, the people wither away.”