Thread by @P_Kallioniemi

In today's #vatnik soup I will introduce 🇷🇺's most "hawkish hawk" and Putin's old friend,Nikolai Patrushev.He belongs to Putin's siloviki faction & he's considered to be one of his closest advisors.He's also seen as one of the likeliest candidates for continuing Putin's work. 1/6

Patrushev directed FSB 1999-2008, and he's been involved in the espionage business since the 70s. He worked with Putin already during this time at Leningrad KGB. UK public inquiry stated that Patrusev (with Putin) was responsible for the 2006 poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.2/6

Litvinenko had accused Putin of ordering the assassinations of Berezovsky & Politkovskya, but 2016 UK report suggested that Litvinenko was actually killed for calling Putin a pedophile and stated that at some point FSB had videos of Putin having sex with underaged boys.

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Nikolai's role has also been questioned in the 1999 Russian apartment bombings.Over 300 people died in them & they were used as casus belli in the 2nd Chechen War.Some historians say the bombings were coordinated by 🇷🇺 security services to help bring Putin into the presidency.4/6

Patrushev is also a big fan of conspiracy theories. He believes that the West is trying to reduce world's population drastically and that the US is trying to destroy Russia completely. He's also stated that marriages between humans and animals are legal
in the West.

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Russian politics expert Mark Galeotti has called Nikolai as the "most dangerous man in Russia" because of his paranoia and conspiracy-driven thinking.

Patrushev was sanctioned by EU in 2014 and by US in 2018 and more so in 2022.

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