PATRUSHEV, N. P.

A KGB officer in the Leningrad directorate from the 1970s, alongside Vladimir Putin. Succeeded Putin as Director of the FSB (the KGB's domestic successor) in August 1999, when Putin moved up to become prime minister. Held the FSB role until 2008, then served as Secretary of the Security Council — the senior coordinating body for Russia's security services — for the next sixteen years (2008–2024). Moved to the post of «Presidential Aide» in May 2024.

Patrushev is widely regarded as the architect of the «siloviki» governance model that consolidated under Putin: the integration of intelligence, military, prosecution and presidential administration into a single vertical. He is associated with the most ideologically hardline reading of Russia's posture toward the West — explicit framings of NATO as an existential enemy, of the war in Ukraine as a defensive civilisational conflict.

The 2020 Project (Проект) investigation documented the rapid accumulation of wealth by Patrushev's son Dmitry — formerly head of Rosselkhozbank, then Minister of Agriculture (2018–2024), and from 2024 a Deputy Prime Minister. Family assets were valued at over $50 mn USD by 2020 — including elite real estate, company stakes and property unaccounted for by official salary. A separate Forbes (2021) confirmation documented a closed estate of 10+ hectares outside Moscow. Patrushev's older son Andrey followed a parallel siliviki-child trajectory: adviser to Igor Sechin at Rosneft from age 25, then deputy CEO of Gazprom Neft for offshore projects, then chair of Zarubezhneft. After 2022, OCCRP and iStories («Riches of the Siloviki») documented family real estate in Zurich and London and Swiss bank holdings — combined assets abroad estimated above $100 mn USD; portions are now under EU, UK and U.S. sanctions.