1. Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev 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.
34 Facts About Nikolai Patrushev
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Nikolai Patrushev previously served as the director of the Federal Security Service from 1999 to 2008.
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Nikolai Patrushev played a key role in the decisions to seize and then annex Crimea in 2014 and to invade Ukraine in 2022.
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Nikolai 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.
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Nikolai 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.
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Nikolai Patrushev attended intelligence and security courses at the KGB School in Minsk, and later at the Higher School of the KGB in Moscow.
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Nikolai Patrushev has known Vladimir Putin since the 1970s, when the two men worked together in the Leningrad KGB.
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In June 1995, Nikolai Patrushev became deputy chief of the FSB's Organization and Inspection Department.
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The next day, Nikolai Patrushev announced that the incident in Ryazan had been an anti-terror drill and the device found there contained only sugar, and freed the FSB agents involved.
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From May 2008 until May 2024, Nikolai Patrushev had been Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, a consultative body of the president that works out his decisions on national security affairs.
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Nikolai Patrushev considers the 2014 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine to have been started by the United States.
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In June 2019, Nikolai Patrushev said that Iran "has always been and remains our ally and partner".
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Nikolai Patrushev was a leading figure behind Russia's updated national security strategy, published in May 2021.
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On 29 March 2023, Nikolai Patrushev arrived in New Delhi and met with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
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Nikolai Patrushev is considered as very hawkish towards the West and the United States, and in 2022 was seen by some observers as one of the likeliest candidates for succeeding Putin.
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Nikolai Patrushev predicted that the United States would abandon its allies in Ukraine:.
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In early November 2021, CIA Director William Burns and US ambassador to Russia John Sullivan met in Moscow with Nikolai Patrushev and informed him that they knew about Russia's invasion plans.
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Sullivan recounted that Nikolai Patrushev was undeterred and "supremely confident" that the invasion was going to succeed.
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However, in late January 2022, just before the invasion, Nikolai Patrushev publicly denied that Russia was prepared to attack Ukraine.
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On 26 April 2022, after two months of war, Nikolai Patrushev predicted that Ukraine would collapse and be broken into several states because of what he cast as a US attempt to use Kyiv to undermine Russia.
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Nikolai Patrushev claimed that "Ukraine, saturated with weapons, poses a threat to Russia".
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On 17 August 2022, Nikolai Patrushev met with Narendra Modi's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to discuss measures to strengthen the strategic partnership across sectors including defense ties and energy security.
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In October 2022, Nikolai Patrushev accused the United States and its allies of wanting to "fight to the last Ukrainian".
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In November 2022, Nikolai Patrushev accused the West of inciting Ukraine to attacks on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and of assisting in the production of a "dirty bomb".
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Nikolai Patrushev accused the United States of wanting to recruit terrorists from Afghanistan and use them in the fight against Russia in Ukraine.
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In February 2023, during a meeting with CCP Politburo member Wang Yi in Moscow, Nikolai Patrushev claimed that "the bloody events in Ukraine staged by the West" are just one example of the West's attempts to maintain its global dominance.
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On 15 September 2023, Nikolai Patrushev claimed that Russia had identified and "neutralized" hundreds of foreign spies in recent years.
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The paper alleged that Nikolai Patrushev presented to Putin a plan to assassinate Yevgeny Prigozhin in August 2023, which led to intelligence officials inserting a bomb under the wing of Prigozhin's plane during pre-departure safety checks.
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In March 2024, Nikolai Patrushev claimed that Ukraine was behind the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow.
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Nikolai Patrushev was offered to become presidential aide in charge of shipbuilding after Putin's fifth inauguration.
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Nikolai Patrushev was personally sanctioned by the UK government in 2014 in relation to Russo-Ukrainian War.
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Nikolai Patrushev was sanctioned by New Zealand in relation to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Nikolai Patrushev believes in various conspiracy theories and often gives interviews to state-controlled media in Russia.
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Nikolai Patrushev's eldest son, Dmitry, is a banker and the deputy prime minister for Agriculture since 2024, he previously served as Minister of Agriculture of Russia from May 2018 until 2024.