Who is Nikolai Patrushev? Ex-spy chief reportedly in charge during Putin’s cancer recovery?

International

oi-Deepika S

Moscow, May 03: Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to undergo cancer surgery while temporarily handing over power to the secretary of the country’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, media reports claimed.

Putin allegedly had a two-hour “heart-to-heart” conversation with Nikolai Patrushev, the report said citing a Telegram post.

Reports have allegedly claimed that Putin is suffering from cancer and a host of other serious maladies, including Parkinson’s disease.

Reportedly, doctors have advised Putin to undergo an operation, the New York Post reported citing a Telegram channel purportedly run by a former Russian Foreign Intelligence Service lieutenant general.

The anticipated surgery and recovery are expected to incapacitate Putin for “a short time,” the report said.

Who is Nikolai Patrushev?

Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev is Putin’s ‘only truly trusted person and friend in the system of power’. He is a Russian politician, security officer and intelligence officer who has served as the secretary of the Security Council of Russia since 2008. He is the hardline Security Council head and a former KGB counterintelligence officer.

Reports also say Platonovich Patrushev is the mastermind behind Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Born in 1951 in Leningrad (today Saint Petersburg), Patrushev is the son of a Soviet Navy officer who was also a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He 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.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Patrushev continued to work in the security services and from 1992 to 1994 he was Minister of Security of the Republic of Karelia while in 1994 he was brought to Moscow as head of the Directorate of Internal Security of the FSK.

Since 2008, Patrushev has been Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, a consultative body of the President that works out his decisions on national security affairs.