Nikolai Patrushev

Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev is the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

A brief biography of Nikolai Patrushev

Nikolai Patrushev was born in St. Petersburg, July 11, 1951.

He received higher education at St. Petersburg Shipbuilding University and later at KGB courses in Minsk.

Patrushev joined the Soviet KGB in 1975, starting as a junior authorized operative in the State Security Committee, but eventually rising through the ranks to the post of chief of the anti-smuggling service.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the KGB as a state body, Patrushev was appointed Minister of Security in Karelia, a position he held for two years, while also managing the Karelian section of the FSB, before being transferred to full service in the FSB - heading the FSB's own security service.

In 1999 Patrushev became deputy director of the Russian FSB, but only a few months after his appointment to this post, he was forced to act as head of the FSB, a position he held permanently until 2008.

In 2008, he was appointed Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. And in 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin reappointed him to that position.

Scandals with Nikolai Patrushev

Nikolai Patrushev called the Revolution of Dignity a "military coup" and actively promoted the Kremlin propaganda idea of a "putsch" and a "military junta in Kiev."

The highest court in London concluded that Nikolai Patrushev, together with Vladimir Putin, was involved in the high-profile murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer.

In 2018, many media outlets named Nikolai Patrushev as one of those involved in the cocaine smuggling that was discovered in the Russian embassy in Argentina.

Patrushev and Zelensky

The investigative journalism program "Schemes" (Radio Liberty) published data according to which Nikolai Patrushev and Vladimir Zelensky allegedly met secretly in Oman in 2020.