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Conversations with Vladimir Putin, P.69 Back to Text 28 PUTINS PEOPLE How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West Catherine Belton Copyright William Collins An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF WilliamCollinsBooks.com This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2020 Copyright © Catherine Belton 2020 Cover photograph © Getty Images Catherine Belton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e- book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down- loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Source ISBN: 9780007578795 Ebook Edition © April 2020 ISBN: 9780007578801 Version: 2020-04-29 Dedication To my parents, Marjorie and Derek, as well as to Richard and to Catherine Birkett. Epigraph ‘Russian organised-crime leaders, their members, their associates, are moving into Western Europe, they are purchasing property, they are establishing bank accounts, theyre establishing companies, theyre weaving themselves into the fabric of society, and by the time that Europe develops an awareness its going to be too late. Former FBI special agent Bob Levinson ‘I want to warn Americans. As a people, you are very naïve about Russia and its intentions. You believe because the Soviet Union no longer exists, Russia now is your friend. It isnt, and I can show you how the SVR is trying to destroy the US even today and even more than the KGB did during the Cold War. Sergei Tretyakov, former colonel in Russian Foreign Intelligence, the SVR, stationed in New York Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph List of Illustrations Dramatis Personae Prologue PART ONE 1. ‘Operation Luch 2. Inside Job 3. ‘The Tip of an Iceberg 4. Operation Successor: ‘It Was Already After Midnight 5. ‘Childrens Toys in Pools of Mud PART TWO 6. ‘The Inner Circle Made Him 7. ‘Operation Energy 8. Out of Terror, an Imperial Awakening 9. ‘Appetite Comes During Eating PART THREE 10. Obschak 11. Londongrad 12. The Battle Begins 13. Black Cash 14. Soft Power in an Iron Fist – ‘I Call Them the Orthodox Taliban 15. The Network and Donald Trump Epilogue Picture Section Notes Index Acknowledgements About the Author About the Publisher Illustrations Vladimir Putins identity card as a Stasi officer Putin in his Dresden days Putin, Lyudmilla and Katerina, or Katya, in August 1986 (Sovfoto/Universal Images Group/Getty Images) Sergei Pugachev and Pavel Borodin Boris Yeltsin and Yevgeny Primakov (Itar Tass/Pool/Shutterstock) Yeltsins daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, and her husband Valentin Yumashev (Shutterstock) Yeltsin handing over the presidency to Putin, 31 December 1999 (AFP/AFP via Getty Images) Putin shaking hands with Pugachev Putin with Nikolai Patrushev (Alexey Panov/AFP via Getty Images) Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Boris Berezovsky (Alexei Kondratyev/AP/Shutterstock) Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev facing trial in 2005 (Shutterstock) Igor Sechin and Gennady Timchenko (Sputnik/TopFoto) Yury Kovalchuk (Alexander Nikolayev/AFP via Getty Images) Dmitry Firtash (Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Martin Schlaff (STR/AFP via Getty Images) Konstantin Malofeyev (Sergei Malgavko\TASS via Getty Images) Putin comforting Lyudmilla Narusova at the funeral of Anatoly Sobchak (Sputnik/Alamy) Putin at his inauguration as president in May 2000 (AFP via Getty Images) The evacuation of Moscows Dubrovka theatre (Anton Denisov/AFP via Getty Images) Putin reacting to the Dubrovka theatre evacuation (AFP via Getty Images) A dinner party at Putins dacha, including Pugachev, Shevkunov, Sechin and Patrushev Putin and Lyudmilla welcomed by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip during a state visit to the UK (© Pool Photograph/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images) Mourners at the school in Beslan where 330 hostages died in a terrorist attack (Shutterstock) The school gymnasium in Beslan (Shutterstock) Semyon Mogilevich (Alexey Filippov/TASS via Getty Images) Moscow police raiding the dacha of Sergei Mikhailov (Kommersant Photo Agency/SIPA USA/PA) Vladimir Yakunin (Mikhail Metzel\TASS via Getty Images) Roman Abramovich at a Chelsea football match (AMA/Corbis via Getty Images) Putin sheds a tear speaking after his reelection in 2012 (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images) Gennady Timchenko and Putin playing hockey (Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images) Donald Trump inside his Taj Mahal casino (Joe Dombroski/Newsday RM via Getty Images) Donald Trump with Tevfik Arif and Felix Sater (Mark Von Holden/WireImage) Dramatis Personae Putin’s inner circle, the siloviki Igor Sechin – Putins trusted gatekeeper, a former KGB operative from St Petersburg who rose in power as deputy head of Putins Kremlin to lead the state takeover of the Russian oil sector. Later became known as ‘Russias Darth Vader for his ruthless propensity for plots. Nikolai Patrushev – Powerful former head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor agency to the KGB, and current Security Council chief. Viktor Ivanov – Former KGB officer who served with Putin in the Leningrad KGB and oversaw personnel as deputy head of Putins Kremlin during his first term, leading the Kremlins initial expansion into the economy. Viktor Cherkesov – Former senior KGB officer who ran the St Petersburg FSB and was a mentor to Putin, moving with him to Moscow, where he remained a close adviser, first as first deputy head of the FSB and then running the Federal Drugs Service. Sergei Ivanov – Former Leningrad KGB officer who became one of the youngest ever generals in Russias foreign-intelligence service in the nineties and then rose in power under Putins presidency, first as defence minister and then as Kremlin chief of staff. Dmitry Medvedev – Former lawyer who started out working as a deputy to Putin in the St Petersburg administration when he was in his early twenties, and followed closely in Putins footsteps thereafter: first as a deputy head of the Kremlin administration, then as its chief of staff, then as Putins interim replacement as president. The custodians, the KGB-connected businessmen Gennady Timchenko – Alleged former KGB operative who rose through the ranks of Soviet trade to become co-founder of one of the first independent traders of oil products before the Soviet fall. Worked closely with Putin from the early nineties, and according to some associates, before the Soviet collapse. Yury Kovalchuk – Former physicist who joined with other KGB-connected businessmen to take over Bank Rossiya, a St Petersburg bank that, according to the US Treasury, became the ‘personal bank for Putin and other senior Russian officials. Arkady Rotenberg – Former Putin judo partner who became a billionaire under Putins presidency after the state awarded his companies multi- billion-dollar construction contracts. Vladimir Yakunin – Former senior KGB officer who served a stint undercover at the United Nations in New York, then joined with Kovalchuk in taking over Bank Rossiya. Putin anointed him chief of the state railways monopoly. ‘The Family’, the coterie of relatives, officials and businessmen closely surrounding the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin Valentin Yumashev – Former journalist who gained Yeltsins trust while writing his memoirs, and was anointed Kremlin chief of staff in 1997. Married Yeltsins daughter Tatyana in 2002. Tatyana Dyachenko – Yeltsins daughter who officially served as his image adviser, but was essentially gatekeeper to the president. Boris Berezovsky – Former mathematician who made his fortune running trading schemes for carmaker AvtoVAZ, the producer of the boxy Zhiguli car that epitomised the Soviet era, and inveigled his way into the good graces of Yeltsin and his Family. When he acquired the Sibneft oil major, he became the epitome of the intensely politically-wired oligarchs of the Yeltsin era. Alexander Voloshin – Former economist who started out working with Berezovsky on privatisations and other schemes, and was transferred to the Kremlin in 1997 to work as Yumashevs deputy chief of staff. Promoted to chief of staff in 1999. Roman Abramovich – Oil trader who became Berezovskys protégé and later outmanoeuvred him to take over Berezovskys business empire. ‘Cashier to the Yeltsin Family and then to Putin. Sergei Pugachev – Russian Orthodox banker who was a master of the Byzantine financing schemes of Yeltsins Kremlin, and then became known as Putins banker too. Co-founder of Mezhprombank, he straddled the worlds of the Family and the siloviki. The Yeltsin-era oligarch who crossed Putin’s men Mikhail Khodorkovsky – Former member of the Communist Youth League who became one of Russias first and most successful businessmen of the perestroika era and the 1990s. The mobsters, footsoldiers for the KGB St Petersburg Ilya Traber – Former Soviet submariner who became a black-market antiques trader in the perestroika years, and then an intermediary between Putins security services and the Tambov organised-crime group, controlling St Petersburgs most strategic assets, the sea port and the oil terminal. Vladimir Kumarin – Tambov organised-crime boss who lost an arm in an
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