Nikolai Patrushev

Starting as a KGB security officer in the city of Leningrad, Patrushev eventually rose to become head of their local anti-smuggling and anti-corruption unit.[11]

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Patrushev continued to work in the security services and from 1992 to 1994 he was Minister of Security of the Republic of Karelia while in 1994 he was brought to Moscow as head of the Directorate of Internal Security of the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK).

In June 1995, Patrushev became deputy chief of the FSB's Organization and Inspection Department. From May to August 1998, he was chief of the Control Directorate of the Presidential Staff; from August to October, he was Deputy Chief of the Presidential Staff; in October 1998, he was appointed deputy director of the FSB and chief of the Directorate for Economic Security. In April 1999, he became FSB First Deputy Director.

On 9 August 1999, a decree by President Boris Yeltsin promoted him to Director, replacing his close friend Vladimir Putin.

The United Kingdom public inquiry into the 2006 poisoning of FSB whistleblower Alexander Litvinenko found that "the FSB operation to kill Mr Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin."[12]

Dmitry Medvedev with Sergei Lavrov and Patrushev at the 2010 SCO Summit in Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Patrushev with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington, D.C. on 22 May 2013

Since May 2008, Patrushev has been Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, a consultative body of the President that works out his decisions on national security affairs.[1][2]

Patrushev considers the 2014 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine to have been started by the United States.[13]

Patrushev believes that the United States "would much prefer that Russia did not exist at all."[13]

Following the October 2016 coup d'état plot failure in Montenegro, Patrushev was cited by experts, such as Mark Galeotti, as the Kremlin's point man for the Balkans, which was interpreted as indicating Russia's increasingly hardline approach to the region as well as the latter's growing importance in Russia's foreign policy strategy.[14][15][16]

Patrushev with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and John Bolton in June 2019

According to a post on Anastasia Vashukevich's Instagram account, Patrushev, who had traveled to Thailand during late February 2018, was involved in her arrest in Thailand during late February 2018.[17]

In January 2019, he said Ukrainian authorities were being "controlled" by the US.[18]

In June 2019, Patrushev said that Iran "has always been and remains our ally and partner".[19]

Patrushev with Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Jakarta, Indonesia in December 2021

In January 2021, he said that "the West needs" Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny "to destabilise the situation in Russia, for social upheaval, strikes and new Maidans."[20]

Patrushev was a leading figure behind Russia's updated national security strategy, published in May 2021. It states that Russia may use "forceful methods" to "thwart or avert unfriendly actions that threaten the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation."[21][22]

On 19 September 2022, during his visit to China, he described the "strengthening of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation with Beijing as an unconditional priority of Russia's foreign policy."[23] He said that both China and Russia are calling for "a more just world order".[24]

On 18 November 2022, he arrived in Tehran and met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and top security official Ali Shamkhani.[25] On 21 November 2022, he invited Vietnamese Minister of Public Security Tô Lâm to Moscow to strengthen security cooperation between Russia and Vietnam.[26] On 31 January 2023, he met Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry in Moscow.[27]

In February 2023, he hosted CCP Politburo member Wang Yi in Moscow and prepared the ground for the visit of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping to Russia in March 2023.[5] Patrushev said that "amid a campaign by the West to deter both Russia and China, it is particularly important to further deepen the Russian-Chinese coordination and cooperation in the international arena."[28]

In February and March 2023, he visited Algeria, Venezuela and Cuba.[29] On 29 March 2023, Patrushev arrived in New Delhi and met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.[30]

In May 2023 Patrushev was interviewed by Izvestia, during which he revealed thoughts which troubled many, for example that the US seeks to displace Russia because the former fears a volcanic eruption in Yellowstone.[31][32]

In August 2021, during the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, Patrushev told Izvestia newspaper that the United States had abandoned its Afghan allies, and that the reason for was the incompetent work of the intelligence services of the United States, Britain and other NATO countries and the misplaced belief of the West in the correctness of its decisions. He predicted that the United States would also abandon its allies in Ukraine:

"...Kyiv is obsequiously serving the interests of its overseas patrons, striving to get into NATO. But was the ousted pro-American regime in Kabul saved by the fact that Afghanistan had the status of a principal U.S. ally outside NATO? (No). A similar situation awaits supporters of the American choice in Ukraine."[33]

In early November 2021, CIA Director William Burns and U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan met in Moscow with Patrushev and informed him that they knew about Russia's invasion plans.[34] Burns warned that if Putin proceeded down this path, the West would respond with severe consequences for Russia. Sullivan recounted that Patrushev was undeterred, "supremely confident".[35]

In late January 2022, during a visit to mark the anniversary of the end of the Siege of Leningrad during the Second World War, Patrushev said, "We don't want war. We don't need that at all."[36] On 30 January he denied allegations that Russia planned to invade Ukraine, describing the claims as "completely absurd."[37]

Kyiv after Russian shelling on 14 March 2022. Patrushev played a key role in Putin's decision to invade Ukraine.[5]

Sources say Putin's decision to invade Ukraine was influenced by a small group of war hawks around him,[38] including Patrushev and Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.[39] According to Putin-regime expert Catherine Belton, it was "Patrushev who's always been the leading ideologue of using capitalism as a tool to undermine the West to buy off and corrupt officials and so on. And he's certainly very much painted the West as a hostile enemy of Russia and something which is kind of debauched and decrepit, and it's time to attack [Ukraine in 2022]."[40] According to sources close to the Kremlin, most of Putin's close advisers opposed the invasion, and even Patrushev advised Putin to give diplomacy another chance three days before the invasion, but Putin overruled them all.[41]

On 26 April 2022, after two months of war, Patrushev predicted that Ukraine would collapse and be broken into several states because of what he cast as a U.S. attempt to use Kyiv to undermine Russia. He repeated the "denazification" trope and claimed:

"Using their henchmen in Kyiv, the Americans, in an attempt to suppress Russia, decided to create an antipode of our country, cynically choosing Ukraine for this, trying to divide essentially a single people. The result of the policy of the West and the regime in Kyiv can only be the disintegration of Ukraine into several states."

Washington responded that Moscow was angry that Ukraine had embraced the West as embodied in their desire to join the EU and NATO.[42] Patrushev claimed that "Ukraine, saturated with weapons, poses a threat to Russia".[43] He downplayed the sanctions against Russia and said that "Russia is reorienting itself away from the European market to the African, Asian and Latin American markets."[43]

In April 2022, he addressed the global food crisis, caused in part by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying that "Tens of millions of people in Africa or the Middle East, through the fault of the West, will be on the verge of starvation. To survive, they will rush to Europe. I'm not sure that Europe will survive the crisis."[43]

Photos of Ukrainian soldiers who died during the Russo-Ukrainian War. Patrushev accused the West of wanting to "fight to the last Ukrainian".[43]

In May 2022, he speculated that Poland "is already taking actions related to the seizure of western Ukrainian territories."[43] He claimed that the West "has already revived the shadow market for the purchase of human organs from the socially vulnerable segments of the Ukrainian population for clandestine transplant operations for European patients."[44]

On 17 August 2022, Patrushev met with Narendra Modi's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to discuss measures to strengthen the strategic partnership across sectors including defense ties and energy security. Russia appreciated India's neutral position on Ukraine.[45]

In October 2022, Patrushev accused the United States and its allies of wanting to "fight to the last Ukrainian".[43] He said that Anglo-Saxons "are exploiting Ukraine as an instrument of struggle with our country ... The goal is to suppress Russia, retain their imaginary supremacy, keep their unipolar world, ensure themselves the opportunity to live at the expense of others.[43]

In November 2022, Patrushev accused the West of inciting Ukraine to attacks on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and of assisting in the production of a "dirty bomb". He also accused the United States of wanting to recruit terrorists from Afghanistan and use them in the fight against Russia in Ukraine. He claimed that the West wants to destabilize the world to maintain its global dominance, saying that the "reckless policy of Washington, London, and their allies resulted in bloody adventures in the Balkans, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine, which have already claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people."[46]

In January 2023, he claimed that Russia was fighting NATO in Ukraine and that the West was trying to destroy Russia.[47]

In February 2023, during a meeting with CCP Politburo member Wang Yi in Moscow, Patrushev claimed that "the bloody events in Ukraine staged by the West" are just one example of the West's attempts to maintain its global dominance.[28]

In May 2023, Patrushev blamed the United States and Ukraine for the number of attacks in western Russia and said that "the terrorist attacks committed in Russia are accompanied by an information campaign prepared in advance in Washington and London, designed to destabilise the socio-political situation, and to undermine the constitutional foundations and sovereignty of Russia."[48]