Nikolai Patrushev
Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev (Russian: Никола́й Плато́нович Па́трушев; born 11 July 1951) is a Russian politician, security officer and former intelligence officer who served as the secretary of the Security Council of Russia from 2008 to 2024. He previously served as the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) from 1999 to 2008. Belonging to the siloviki faction of president Vladimir Putin's inner circle,[1] Patrushev is believed to be one of the closest advisors to Putin and a leading figure behind Russia's national security affairs.[2] He played a key role in the decisions to seize and then annex Crimea in 2014 and to invade Ukraine in 2022.[3]
In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Platonovich and the family name is Patrushev.
Nikolai Patrushev
Vladimir Putin
Dmitry Medvedev
Igor Ivanov
Valentin Sobolev (acting)
Boris Yeltsin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
11 July 1951
Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
2, including Dmitry
1975–2008
Early life and education[edit]
Born on 11 July 1951 in Leningrad, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia), Patrushev is the son of a Soviet Navy officer who was also a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[4]
Patrushev studied at secondary school No. 211 in the same class with the future chairman of the Supreme Council of the United Russia party, Boris Gryzlov.[5][6] Patrushev graduated from Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute in 1974, and initially he worked as an engineer in the Institute's shipbuilding design bureau, but very soon afterwards, in 1975, he was recruited by the KGB.[7]
He attended intelligence and security courses at the KGB School in Minsk, and later at the Higher School of the KGB in Moscow (the present-day FSB Academy).[4]
Patrushev has known Vladimir Putin since the 1970s, when the two men worked together in the Leningrad KGB.[8]