A country for old men: What’s happening to Nikolai Patrushev’s protégés at the FSB after his departure?

It is unlikely that Bortnikov or Kulishov will be dismissed over the AFU’s surprise incursion in the Kursk Region — which is still ongoing as of the time of publication. Most likely, someone of a lower rank will be blamed. As The Insider has learned, the promotion to general of Dmitry Bobrov, the head of the Kursk border department, has been postponed. Bobrov was appointed in November 2023 after previously leading the border guard in the southern Siberian region of Tuva, where his main task was fighting livestock thiefs from Mongolia.

“Considering the track record and experience of the new head, I am confident that the work organized at the regional FSB border department is in reliable hands,” Roman Starovoit, then the Kursk region’s governor, said in praise of Bobrov. Starovoit was later promoted to Russia’s Minister of Transport.

However, Bobrov's appointment in Kursk caused considerable surprise. According to a source familiar with the FSB's operations in the region, “It was said that Bobrov had a good service record in his previous position and was held in high regard by his superiors. But, pardon me, in Tuva, the colonel dealt with cattle rustlers and illegal border crossings. Here in Kursk, it's a frontline region with entirely different operational tasks. The first priority for border intelligence was to restore our network in [Ukraine’s] Sumy Region, which had been thoroughly dismantled by the SBU [Ukraine’s Security Service] and the evacuation of civilians. Instead, Bobrov turned to self-promotion and had local TV stations air reports saying stuff like ‘The border is secure.’ We've all seen the results,” the source explained to The Insider.

Another noteworthy stain on Kulishov’s record concerns data leaks. In early August, the “Cordon 2023” database, which contained information on Russians who crossed the country’s border from 2014 to 2023, appeared online.

Patrushev's clan: the opposition hunter, the personnel chief, and the property manager

The Insider has identified a dozen more generals from Patrushev's clan running key FSB departments. For example, Aug. 26 marked the 70th birthday of Alexei Sedov, head of the FSB’s 2nd Service. Sedov began his KGB career in Leningrad, where he met Patrushev. This year, Sedov’s birthday celebration was held at a mansion in Serebryany Bor that the general obtained through his ties to oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov. Unlike in previous years, the celebration was a family affair. It was attended by Sediov’s daughter Daria and her Italian husband, Sedov’s son (an intelligence officer) and his wife, and featured brief visits from Sedov’s neighbors Nikolai Patrushev, along with former FSB Special Operations Center head Alexander Tikhonov.

The official name of the FSB’s “second service” is the Service for the Protection of the Constitutional Order and Combating Terrorism. However, its main task is not fighting underground terrorist networks — it is neutralizing Putin's personal enemies and carrying out political surveillance operations. Sedov has run the service for 18 years, and his subordinates were directly involved in the poisoning of opposition activists Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza, and of writer Dmitry Bykov. They also oversaw the “Network” («Сеть»), “Artpodgotovka,” and “Novoye Velichie” (“New Greatness”) cases, which featured prominently in the Russian government’s crackdown on informal groups and led to the arrests and convictions of dozens of young people on dubious charges of extremism. Despite obvious failures in the series of poisonings — in which all of the perpetrators were exposed — Putin appears to be rather pleased with Sedov’s work. According to an FSB source, Putin secretly bestowed upon Sedov yet another government decoration.